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THE 



PARLOR GARDENER: 



A TREATISE 



HOUSE CULTURE OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTS. 



TRAXSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, AND ADAPTED 
TO AMERICAN USE, 

By CORNELIA J. RANDOLPH, 

OF VIRGINIA. 



BOSTON 
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM 

1884 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, 

By J. E. TILTO.N & CJ , 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District 
of Massachusetts. 



Transfer 
tnelneers Schoof Ub^^ 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



)>S^c 



Who in our days does not love flowers, and 
who does not like to do a little gardening? 
Assuredly, not you nor I, dear reader, nor any 
of our acquaintance. But the love of flowers, 
the taste which of all others affords the greatest 
amount of elegant and harmless pleasure, is by 
many deemed to be an unfortunate one, seehig 
that it is out of their poAver to indulge it. In 
your case, sir, for instance, the burden of busi- 
ness, oftentimes a terribly heavy one, Avhich it 
is not in your power to shake off', absolutely 
forbids a residence in the country. And, in 
yours, my dear lady, the duty of watching over 
your young family obliges you to remain in the 
city. Others of your friends, who share your 
taste for flowers, are condemned to a sedentary 
existence, for the want of that most precious 
of all possessions — health. Time was when a 
few favored individuals possessed w'hat was 

(3) 



4 PREFACE. 

called a garden in the interior of the city ; but, 
at best, those gardens had, as a celebrated wit 
expressed it, " the shut-up smell." But nowa- 
days nothing of the kind is to be found ; the 
opening of a street, the laying out of a square, 
has dispossessed them of the pent-up treasure, 
or else the ground has become of such value 
for building purposes, that it is sold at so much 
the square foot — a price sufficient almost to 
cover it with gold. Nor is this the case with 
the capital alone ; other cities less crowded, 
all towns, in fine, of sufficient consequence to 
grow, will soon be without a single garden, large 
or small, within their limits ; the flower, van- 
quished, retreats before the building stone. 
Happily it is not indispensable to possess a 
garden, either large or small, in order to have 
flowers, and to enjoy the tranquil delight af- 
forded by the attentions one bestows upon 
them, and which one experiences in watching 
the various phases of their development. 

Suppose yourself, for instance, after a severe 
illness, confined to your room by a long conva- 
lescence, which it is not in the power of any one 
to abridge. Even if you were the owner of a 
garden, you would then only admire its flowers 
at a distance, through your window panes. 



PREFACE. 

Then it is that you would feel all the value of a 
chamber-garden, the flowers of which could be 
renewed at small cost every fcAV weeks ; taking 
care to admit into it those only which, from the 
delicacy of their perfume, or their absence of 
smell, would be sure not to be injurious to your 
health. 

Suppose this enforced seclusion to have be- 
gun in the month of May, a season at which a 
garden possesses the greatest attractions ; sup- 
pose your circumstances such as to forbid your 
indulging in the luxury, little expensive as it 
is, of a flower-stand ; in that case, here is a re- 
ceipt for gardening without earth, without water, 
without so much as a flower pot even ; in a word, 
without any expenditure beyond a mere trifle. 

Procure from a gardener a fresh bunch of a 
thick-leaved plant, named rhodiola rosea, in 
English the houseleek, that will cost you at 
most a few cents. At the beginning of June 
the stalks of the rhodiola are garnished along 
their whole length with fleshy leaves, and ter- 
minated by a bunch of buds, as yet but little 
developed, and disposed in a corymb. Drive 
into a wall two hooks, about half a yard apart 
in a horizontal line ; and upon this support lay 
the stalk of rhodiola, without tying it in any 



b PREFACE . 

part. This is all that is requisite for a cu- 
rious experiment in parlor gardening, which 
cannot fail to awaken your interest and afford 
you amusement. Nature having endowed the 
rhodiola with the faculty of living, drawing its 
nourishment from the air alone, which it de- 
composes by means of its leaves, you will see 
it day by day, hour by hour, lengthen, turning 
upwards at the end where the floAver buds are, 
and dropping its leaves at the lower part of the 
stalk, where they will dry up and fall off", one 
by one, while those of the upper part will pre- 
serve their freshness and become more numer- 
ous. Finally, it will bloom and present you 
with a bunch of rose-colored flowers as per- 
fectly developed as if the plant had grown in 
good earth constantly watered. 

When these flowers have faded, cut them off"; 
and cut off" also the lower part of the stalk. 
After this preparation, plant it in a pot filled 
with ordinary garden earth, which you must 
take care not to water too often. In this situa- 
tion your stalk of rhodiola Avill take root, and 
Avill, before autumn, form a tuft of young shoots 
which will all bloom the following year, and sup- 
ply you amply with the means to repeat the ex- 
periment just described. 



PREFACE. 7 

The rhodiola is called by the French St. 
John's herb. You will wish to knoAv, perhaps, 
my dear lady, the reason for this name. We 
will cheerfully satisfy your curiosity. In many 
parts of France the rhodiola grows abundantly 
on the outskirts of the woods, and there the 
experiment of its flowering without earth and 
without water is repeated every year in almost 
every peasant's cottage. If it blooms before 
the feast of St. John the Baptist, (the 24th 
of June,) they draw from this circumstance a 
favorable augury with regard to the success 
of a project or the accomplishment of a wish. 
In the contrary case, the presage is regarded as 
unfavorable. I must not omit to add, that 
this, which, in the middle ages, had truly all 
the reality and power of superstition, is now no 
longer any thing more than an amusement of 
young girls, in whom the oracle of St. John's 
herb inspires no more confidence than that of 
the w^hite daisy. 

Should it so happen that you Avish to do a 
little gardening in your room, without being 
able to afford even the very small expense that 
the purchase of a bunch of rhodiola requires, 
— a thing which may happen to any one, — spend 
nothing at all. Ask some kind acquaintance to 



8 PRETACE. 

procure for you a tuft of the yellow seduin, 
(stone-crop.) It is a very pretty wild plant, 
which bears, in place of leaves, little green ex- 
crescences elegantly set into one another. Each 
stalk forms part of a tuft composed of a great 
number of stems coming out from a common 
centre, and each bears on its top some star- 
shaped flowers of a beautiful golden yellow. 
Fix a strong pin into the wall paper of your 
chamber, and hang a tuft of stone-crop to it by 
a thread, which you must take care not to tie 
too tight. In a few days the stalks will curve 
upwards and stand upright, and the flower buds 
will all open exactly as if the plant had not been 
taken from the place where it flrst grew. 

You see now that there are flowers for every 
body without exception ; and of this you Mill 
become more fully convinced if you will only 
peruse, with a little indulgent attention, my 
Parlor Gardening. 



CONTENTS 



PART I. 

THE GARDEN IN THE APARTMENT. 

CHAPTER I. 
Divisions of the Work, 11 

CHAPTER IT. 
The Mantelpiece Garden, 20 

CHAPTER III. 
The Etagere Garden. 31 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Flower stand Garden, 44 

CHAPTER V. 
The Portable Greenhouse, 55 

CHAPTER VI. 
Slips in the Portable Greenhouse — Cold or 
Hot, 65 



10 CONTENTS. 

CIIAPTEH YII. 

Grafts in the Portable Greenhouse, . 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The House Aquarium, • 



PART II. 

THE GARDEN AT THE WINDOW. 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Garden upon the Balcony, 96 

CIJAPTER X. 
The Garden upon the large Balcony, ... lio 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Garden upon the Terrace, 120 

CHAPTER XII. 
Fruits upon the Terrace, 129 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Double Window, 143 

Conclusion, 150 



THE 

PARLOR GARDENER, 

PART I. 

THE GARDEN IN THE APARTMENT. 
CHAPTER I. 

Divisions of the Work. — Part I. The Garden in the Room. — 
Part II. The Garden at the Window. —Watering. — Temper- 
ature of tlie Water for Watering. — Effect of Cold Water upon 
Plants cultivated in a Room. —Warmth. — Advantages of the 
Heat being equal Night and Bay. — Light. — Ventilation. — 
Cleaning of Broad-leaved Plants. — Same of Narrow-leaved. 

Divisions of the "Work. 

IT IS not always easy to cultivate ornamental 
plants in an inhabited room ; but, far from 
complaining of this difficulty, we should, on the 
contrary, congratulate ourselves on it, for it is 
a great pleasure to do a difficult thing and suc- 

(11) 



12 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

ceed in it. To be successful in parlor garden- 
ing, nothing is requisite but care and patience : 
much of these is necessary, and so much the bet- 
ter — this sort of gardening belonging pecviliarly 
to those who have a great deal of leisure. The 
extent to which parlor gardening can be carried 
on, the kinds and variety of plants that it may 
embrace, the times of the year in which we can 
occupy ourselves in it with the most pleasure and 
success, — all this varies according to the space 
we have, and the fitness of the situation for our 
experiments. We shall take into consideration 
all these things, as they present themselves in the 
natural course of ordinary life. That we may 
arrange our hints in some order, we will exam- 
ine separately the garden in the room and the 
garden at the wmdoio — these being the two natu- 
ral divisions of this treatise. 

In Part I. separate chapters are devoted to the 
garden on the mantel-piece, the garden on the 
etagere, that on the flower-stand, and that in the 
portable greenhouse. The different methods of 
propagation — by seeds, by slips, and by grafts — 
are the subjects of so many separate chapters. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 13 

They are the most delicate and the most amusing 
of the operations of parlor gardening. This Part 
will terminate by details on the parlor aqnarium. 
In Part II. gardening is considered under all 
the aspects that it can present — on the veranda, 
between the double Avindows, (which will be 
converted into a miniature conservatory,) and 
on the terrace, (which, even when it is not very 
large, can be made into a real garden,) where we 
can have flowers all the year round, in less num- 
ber, doubtless, but as beautiful and as various as 
in a well-kept parterre. 



GENERAL D I K E C T I O N S . 

"Watering. 

In order to cultivate ornamental plants with 
success in a room, we must reflect that they have 
their wants and their enemies ; and we must sat- 
isfy the one and protect them from the other. 
Plants confined within our dwellings have need 
of earth suited to their temperaments ; and it is 
easy to procure it. They require also watering ; 



14 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

some rarely and sparingly, others often and pro- 
fusely, but always with water of the same tem- 
perature as that of the earth in which they are 
placed — this being a very important point, upon 
which most people who have flowers in pots in 
their chambers are perfectly ignorant. You ladies 
lilce a comfortable degree of warmth ; so also do 
your plants ; and nothing is more agreeable, and 
at the same time more healthy, than a good tem- 
perature within doors when the cold reigns with- 
out. Yet, mark what frequently happens : Some 
beautiful camellia is your delight. To judge by 
the profusion of buds with which it is loaded, it 
promises a splendid bloom in January. You have 
been enjoined not to fail to water it evening and 
morning, and this injunction you punctually ful- 
fil. But in what way ? You go to the dining 
room sideboard for the water pitcher — you find 
it empty — you have it replenished from the fil- 
ter — the temperature of this water is almost icy 
. — you pour it upon the roots of your camellia. 
Suppose some one was to pour icy water upon 
your feet — the shock would make you cry out. 
Your camellia says nothing, but it does not suffer 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 15 

less. Its sap, that was in full activity, slackens — 
stops ; and, that it may begin to flow again, all 
the buds drop, one after another — not a single 
one can bloom. You are astonished at this, and 
say, "It is not my fault." In Sir Walter Scott's 
«' Pirate," the gardener of the Shetland Isles is 
surprised that his apple trees have frozen. He 
says, as you would say, "It is not my fault; I 
watered them all the winter — with warm water." 
It is the same error reversed. Remember, then, 
that in watering any plant whatever, cultivated 
in a pot in a room, the first requisite is, that the 
water you use be of the same temperature with 
the earth in which the plant grows. 

If you have occasion to visit a greenhouse, and 
it should happen that you pay a little attention to 
the manner in which it is managed, you M'ill re- 
mark that it always contains a reservoir of water 
intended to water the plants with. This water, 
from the cu'cumstance alone of its remaining in 
the greenhouse, takes the same temperature with 
it before it is used. This is an example that must 
be followed. In the evening, place in the chamber 
a vessel containing the quantity of water neces- 



16 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

sary to -water the plants next morning ; this water 
and the earth of the pots will be of the same 
temperature. 

"Warming. 

As to heat, that is not M'hat is most important 
for the health of your plants ; the greater num- 
ber of those which you can have in cold weather 
will always be warm enough in your house, pro- 
vided it does not freeze there. The essential point 
is, that they should not pass by sudden alterna- 
tions from heat to cold, and that there should be 
as little difference as possible between the temper- 
ature of night and day. In this respect it is not 
difficult to give them satisfaction, while at the 
same time you are making yourself comfortable. 

Light. 

But there is another element of which they all 
have as much need as of heat ; that is light. Do 
not be afraid of inconveniencing yourself a little, 
of spoiling the symmetrical arrangement of your 
furniture, in order that your flower-stand may re- 
ceive as much light as possible, and be placed as 
near to where it comes in as the gardeners by pro- 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 17 

fession say ought to be done, and as they do in 
their greenhouses. If you travel in Belgium, in 
Holland, in the north of Germany, a country 
■where parlor gardening is very much, in repute, 
you will see that all who have flowers in thoir 
rooms (and every body has) place them conspic- 
uously upon Hagtres painted green, which gives 
to entire streets the appearance of a floral exhibi- 
tion. There is a street in Brussels, where, if you 
wdsh to see a continual display of gardening and 
botany, you have nothing to do but to walk along 
and look at the windows on each side. And you 
might, in your walk, get some useful hints with 
regard to the kinds of ornamental plants you wish 
to cultivate in your parlor. 

Ventilation. 
After water, heat, and light, the continual re- 
newal of air for your plants is most necessary. 
If your room is warmed by a good open fireplace, 
which draws well and gives you a clear fire with- 
out smoke, so much the better ; the draught of 
the chimney renews sufficiently the air of the 
apartment : both your own health and that of 
2 



18 THE PARLOK GARDENER. 

the plants must be the better for this. Do not 
put your plants in a room in which the chimney- 
smokes ; or in a place warmed by a stove or fur- 
nace ; they will have too little air in this latter 
ease. You will say, that, in the greenhouses and 
conservatories it is by various systems of warming- 
jnpes that a proper temperature is kept up ; and 
that the plants do well. This is true ; but along- 
side of the heat pipes are pipes for ventilation, 
bringing continually into the greenhouse the air 
from without, which is warmed by its contact 
with the heat pipes before it mixes with the in- 
terior air ; and the freshness of this interior air is 
thereby maintained. Not so in a chamber warmed 

by a stove. 

Cleaning. 

Plants in a room have really but one enemy — 
the dust necessarily raised by sweeping. Those 
plants, as the camellias, kalmias, and rhododen- 
drons, which have leaves both large and thick 
enough for the process, ought to be wiped at least 
twice a week with a moistened sponge. As to 
those Avhose leaves are too small to admit of this 
sort of cleaning, as the ericas (heaths) and the 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 19 

epacrls,* you must proceed in the following man- 
ner : Fill a watering pot, the rose of which has 
very fine holes, with water of a proper temper- 
ature ; incline each pot containing a plant to be 
cleaned separately over the sink, and then with 
the watering pot, turning the plant round all the 
time in every direction, pour a fine shower, which 
will have all the effect of a real rain. By this 
means you avoid wetting the earth of the pots to 
excess, and the plants will be perfectly freed from 
dust. 

These general attentions are applicable to all 
plants that can be cultivated in doors. 

* The epacris is a New Holland shrub, which the first settlers 
mistook for a kind of heath, and which is still called heath in Aus- 
tralia, where the true heath (enca) is unknown. — Mrs. Loudon's 
Ladies' Companion to the Flower Garden, edited by A. J. Down- 
ing. 



20 THE PARLOR GARDENER, 



CHAPTER II. 
THE MANTEL-PIECE GARDEN. 

Plants which will do for it. — Choice of Flower Bulbs. — Hyacinths 
blooming under the Water. — Disposition of the Vases for this 
Experiment. — Planting the Bulbs. — Hyacinthsforced, in Water. 

— Jonquil. — Crocus. — Van Tholl Tulips. — Flower Pots for the 
Garden on the Mantel-piece. — Care of the Bulbs after Flowering. 

— Separating the Tufts of Crocus. — Vanilla Tussilago.* — Hepat- 
icas. 

YOU HAVE no idea, ladies, of the amount of 
instructive and agreeable hints I am to give 
you in this chapter : its title is not in the least 
deceptive ; you can really make for yourself a 
garden, without any other place at your disposal 
than your mantel-piece. I take for granted, that 
you will begin in good time to kindle your fires, 
and that they will be kept up until spring has 
fully taken possession of the outer atmosphere. 

On this condition, there will be no disappoint- 
ment for you. in the resources that your garden on 
the mantel-piece will afford. 

* Tussilago — coltsfoot. Vanilla tussilayo is probably the tussi- 
lago fragrans. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 21 

Choice of Flowering Bulbs. 

By the end of September, the evenings in some 
of the states are cool ; a little fire is indispensable 
after sunset. It is now time to procure good roots 
of hyacinths, crocuses, Yan Tholl tulips, and 
jonquil. You must not choose the largest among 
these bulbs, which are not always the best by a 
great deal ; but those of medium size of ;heir 
species — firm, smooth, shining, free from spots or 
bruises, and from softness. Those which give 
premature signs of vegetation ought to be re- 
jected. 

A Hyacinth blooming under W ater. 
Having made your choice among the brightest 
shades of blue, red, and yellow, you must give 
your greatest care to a charming experiment which 
will be the source of a very agreeable amusement 
for you all the winter. You can procure, at a 
small expense, two vases of plain, clear, uncol- 
ored glass ; both of the same form, except that 
one has no bottom, and is a little smaller than the 
other. Thev are to be used as follows : Put into 



TL THE rA.RLOR GARDENER. 

the one that is open at both ends one of the fin- 
est of your hyacinth roots ; suppose you take one 
of a fine red — a sultan Soliinan for instance ; 
place this bulb in a position inverse to its natural 
position, that is, Avith the bottom up, and the top, 
from "which the leaves and flowers are to come, 
down-wards, even with the orifice at the bottom 
of the vase. Then you must crumble a mixture 
of good garden earth and leaf mould over the 
bulb until the vase is three quarters full. A 
second bulb with a flower in strong contrast to 
the first, say a blue if the flower of the first is 
red, and vice versa, must be next placed in the 
vase, so that the top shall be even with the upper 
orifice. You have nothing more to do than to 
place the vase thus prepared upon the first vase, 
full of water. 

Two similar couples look very well, placed upon 
the two ends of the mantel-piece of a room in 
which people habitually sit, and where, conse- 
quently, fire is constantly made while the cold 
season lasts. The earth in the upper vase should 
be moderately watered as soon as the bulbs are 
placed in it, and then kept constantly moist, 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 23 

avoiding excess, by renewed watering whenever 
you perceive that the earth is getting dry. 

At the end of two days, the crowns of the two 
bulbs will both send out straight, white roots ; 
those of the reversed bulb turn down in curves, 
but do not fulfil their functions worse for that. 
Very soon the two bulbs placed in a contrary 
position to each other put forth leaves — the one 
into the air, the other in the water ; then you 
will see appear in the midst of the transparent 
liquid the buds on the floral stalk, and finally 
the flowers, as beautiful, as well formed, of as 
rich a color, surrounded by leaves of as fine a 
green as the corresponding parts possess, of the 
other flower planted in the ordinary manner, 
and vegetating and developing in the air, its 
natural element. It is true that time is neces- 
sary for all this to be accomplished : bulbs 
planted in October will flower fully in Febru- 
ary or March ; but is it not a pleasure to watch 
day by day the phases of their development, 
above all that of the hyacinth which ends by 
blooming in the water, head downwards ? 



24 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

Hyacinths forced in Water. 
While these curious phenomena in vegetation 
are being accomplished, you should place other 
hyacinth roots in bulb glasses, either blue or col- 
orless, of the form adapted to this purpose, which 
you must not fail to keep constantly filled with 
water, so that the liquid shall be even with the 
crown — that is, with the edge of the flat part of 
the bulb — without ever passmg it. For filling 
these glasses, as for watering the earth Avhere the 
bulbs grow one above the other, one upright and 
the other reversed, — remember that you must use 
only water of the temperature of your room. 
Without this precaution you will spoil all, and 
the bloom of your bulbs will be miserable. 

Jonquil — Crocus. 

The roots of the jonquil should be treated like 
the hyacinth roots, — using pure water. As you 
cannot count with certainty on the blooming of 
all roots, it is prudent to put at least three in 
the same glass — placing them on a flat, thin, 
round piece of wood with three holes cut in it. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 25 

They bloom at the same time with the hyacinths. 
In the spaces between the glasses containing the 
bulbous plants nourished by nothing but water, 
place pots full of earth, mixed half and half with 
garden manure ; leaf mould would not be strong 
enough. Plant in these crocus bulbs, taking care 
to group in the same pot the varieties of fine col- 
ors — pure Avhite, white striped with violet, and 
plain violet. The flowers of these plants, which 
precede the development of their leaves, contrast 
agreeably, by the vividness of their colors, with 
the pale yellow of the jonquil. 

Van Tholl Tulips. 
Other pots like the first, and filled with the 
same mixture, must have in them roots of the 
Van Tholl tulips, a charming little tulip with a 
dwarf stem and petals of a bright red bordered 
with golden yellow. All these flowers develop 
at the same time, presenting a happy variety of. 
forms and shades in the bloom of a mantel-piece 
garden, whilst Nature is at work without, pre- 
paring her more abundant supply of flowers in 
the open air. 



26 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

Flower Pots for the Mantel-piece Garden. 

Whatever may be your taste for elegance, be- 
lieve in the experience of an old gardener, and 
never plant your crocuses and Van Tholl tulips 
on your mantel-piece in any thing else than the 
ordinary earthenware flower pots, which cost a 
few cents, varying in price according to their 
size. Conceal their coarse surfaces with cover- 
ings of glazed paper, folded and cut at their 
upper edge, and place under each pot a porcelain 
saucer ; and this is the utmost extent you can 
be permitted to go in sacrifices to elegance. If 
you plant these poor bulbs in rich vases of var- 
nished sheet iron or porcelain, painted and gilt, 
they will languish, and your hopes will be com- 
pletely deceived ; for they will bloom badly, or 
not bloom at all. The porous nature of the ordi- 
nary earthenware flower pots is perfectly well 
adapted to the vegetation of the roots of orna- 
mental plants. If you place these roots in iron 
or porcelain, you will not obtain, however sed- 
ulous your care, any satisfactory result ; no more 
in the garden on the mantel-piece than elsewhere. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 27 

Care of Bulbs after the Bloom is over. 
Bulbs which have vegetated in water do not 
necessarily perish after blooming. Do not wait 
until their leaves turn yellow and fade before you 
take them out of the water. When you have 
done this, let them drip well ; cut off the fibrous 
roots, the leaves, and the flower stalk, and place 
them in a drawer where they will be protected 
from moisture. The next year, those which have 
not turned soft should be planted in earth, out in 
the open air, that they may recover if they have 
strength enough to do so, or to give offsets or 
young bulbs to replace them in time. The bidbs 
Avhich were planted in earth will not have suf- 
fered in any manner from having been forced in 
the mantel-piece garden. Before taking them out 
of the earth, you must wait iintil their leaves are 
half turned yellow after they have bloomed ; then 
let them lose, by drying in the air, a part of the 
moisture they had while vegetating ; after which 
clean them and put them away with the others ; 
they v/ill serve perfectly a second or third time 
for the same sort of culture. 



28 THE PARLOR GARDENER, 

If you like crocuse?, — and if you do not, you 
are too hard to please, for there is not a spring 
flowering plant fresher or prettier than the cro- 
cus, — you must continue to water them after the 
bloom. Their leaves, of a fine green marked 
throughout their length with a white line, will 
not be amiss as part of the decoration of your 
mantel-piece garden. When the leaves begin to 
turn yellow, you must cease entirely to water 
them ; but you must not take up the crocus 
roots. They must be left in the dry earth until 
next year. They will keep there very well, sur- 
rounded by their young family ; for they pro- 
duce every year a certain number of little ones, 
which will bloom in their first spring. These 
bulbs ought only to be taken up every three 
years, and then for the purpose of separating the 
clusters ; without which the pots would be too 
full — there would not be nourishment for the 
whole famil)'. When managed in this manner, 
the tufts of forced crocuses are more beautiful 
the second year than the first, and still more 
beautiful the third year ; after which you must 
reneAV the plantings. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 29 

The very easy gardening, of which we have 
just described the process, will bring you to the 
fine weather ; and then, if you go to the country 
to pass the summer, the mantel-piece may remain 
widowed of its garden until autumn. But if you 
remain, you may put upon the mantel-piece some 
of your prettiest flowers, whenever you have too 
many for your balcony. They will there require 
attentions of which we will tell you in the part 
of this work particularly devoted to the garden 
at the window. 

Vanilla Tussilago — Hepaticas. 

Has your mantel-piece room enough to admit 
of two or three supplementary pots ? Then put 
there — if you arc not afraid of sweet, penetrating 
perfumes, a pot of vanilla tussilago. The flower 
is ugly, but of an odor equal to that of the sweet- 
est orchises, and it does not affect the head. 

If you are afraid of odors, even the delicate 
and inofi'.'nsive, substitute for the vanilla tus- 
silago rose-colored and blue hepaticas, which are 
charming in form and color, and have no per- 
fume. With these resources there is abundant 



30 THE PARLOR GARDEXER. 

material to give you a taste for the culture of 
flowers in the mantel-piece garden. The vanilla 
tussilago and the hepatica are flowers of a most 
accommodating disposition ; nothing more is ne- 
cessary to them than half a glass of water every 
two days, and for the temperature of your cham- 
ber to be such as suits yourself. 



THE PARLOR GARDE XER. 31 



CHAPTER III. 
THE ETAGi:RE GARDEN. 

Gardening on the Etagere. — Succulent Plants. — Peculiarities of 
their Organization. — Dwarf Succulent Plants. — Quantity of 
Earth of wliich they have need. — Aliments that they draw 
from the Air. — Cactus. — Opuntias, (Prickly Pear.) — Melo- 
cacti, (Melon Thistle.) — Echinocacti.* — llow the Goats of 
Jamaica make them drop their thorns. — Stapelias. — Strange 
Shape of the Flower. — Its Smell. — Proof of the Sense of Smell 
in Flies. — Sedums. — Mesenibryanthemunis. — Ice Plants. — 
Crassulas. — Culture of Dwarf Succulent Plants. — Necessity 
of depriving them of Water during their Sleep. 

Gardening on the Etagere. 

IT IS but a few years since the fashion of i.ta- 
gtres has become general. People began by- 
covering them with all sorts of curiosities and 
specimens of natural historj^ — a custom which 
exists still. Then they fabricated out of wire, gilt, 
silvered or bronzed, charming little Itacfires in 

* Round-shaped cacti, which take their name from their resem- 
blance, in form and spines, to a curled-up hedgehog. — Mrs. Lou- 
"ion's Ladies' Companion to the Flower (Jarden. 



32 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

open work, which took up little room, coulcT be 
hung up any where, and hold a whole collection 
of little ornamental plants. 

This series of plants belongs, for the most part, 
to an order of vegetation having a very peculiar 
organization, and endowed with extraordinary 
vital energy. They are commonly called succu- 
lent plants, and are remarkable for the thickness 
of their fleshy and persistent leaves. Among a 
great many of these plants, the stalk and the 
leaves are one and the same organ : the leaves, 
when leaves exist, fulfil the functions of the 
stalk ; and reciprocally, Avhen the leaves are 
wanting, their vegetative duties are fulfilled by 
the stalk. 

Dwaxf Succulent Plants. 
You have no idea, my dear madam, how much 
skill and patience the horticulturists by profession 
have displayed in dwarfing these pretty plants ; 
some of which, when left to follow their own 
notions, in their native country, attain to colossal 
dimensions. 



n,,. h 




Fig. 2. — Etagere with dwarf succulent plants. 



34 THE PAKLOR GARDENER. 

coal ; it -would make an enormous mass of it. 
Do you imagine that the tree could have drawn 
this mass of carbon from the soil Avhere it grew, 
•which does not contain a particle of carbon in its 
composition ? No, it drew this material from the 
atmosphere, by decomposing the air with its 
leaves. That is Avhat our pretty little dwarf suc- 
culent plants do ; and without this faculty, which 
they possess in a very high degree, they would not 
live. 

Cactus — Opuntias. 

Consider first those which belong to the numer- 
ous and strange family of the cactuses ; all of 
them natives of the warmest parts of America. 
See the ojjuntias, whose leaf-stems, or stem- 
leaves, whichever you please to call them, have 
the form of so many battledoors placed alongside 
of each other. These little plants represent to 
you in mhiiature those on which, in ]Mexico and 
in the Island of Madeira, lives the insect called 
cochineal, that furnishes to dyers and painters 
their finest red, under the name of carmine ; from 
which also, by the by, is made that rouge which 
occas-ionally serves in giving color to the com- 



THE PARLOR GARDE XER. 35 

plexion of ladies towards Avhom mother Nature 
Avas stingy when she painted their cheeks. I do 
not mean, however, my dear young ladies, to in- 
timate that this was, by any means, the case with 
either of you. 

Melocacti and Echinocacti. 

To the same family belong also the melocacti 
and echinocacti. Their rounded forms composed 
of prominent ridges, their pretty crown of little 
satiny flowers, of a fine golden yellow, resem- 
ble those of no other family. In the mountains 
of the intojrior of Brazil, and in those of the 
centre of the Island of Jamaica, these same 
plants, — plants of the same species, — that you 
here see reduced to such exceedingly small pro- 
portions, grow upon the slopes of the most arid 
rocks, and become very large. Knowing this, 
you will understand that their bunches of thorns, 
inoffensive in the dwarfed plants because of their 
minute size, constitute defensive weapons Avhere- 
by they are preserved from the teeth of animals. 
Nevertheless, these arms prove useless to them 
against the wily attacks of the numerous herds 



36 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

of goats kept by the English colonists of Jamai- 
ca. The goats, animals essentially climbers by 
nature, climb up the most abrupt declivities of 
the rocks covered with melocacti and echinocacti. 
There, using their horns for the purpose, they 
root up these plants, and roll them down into the 
valley, where, as a preparation for eating them, 
they play with them as a child would play with 
a toy balloon, until, b}^ dint of rolling and tossing 
them about on the pebbles, the thorns have been 
all shaken out. Then the goats are able to feast 
upon them without damage to their mouths, just 
as though the thorns of the colossal cactuses 
were as little to be dreaded as are these dovvny 
representatives of those hard and tough spikes, 
produced by their sisters in miniature. 

Stapelias. 
There are other plants, of a different family, 
but the forms of which recall those of the cac- 
tuses : these are the stapelias. You Avill not fail 
to remark their strange flowers — thick, fleshy, 
violaceous, set Avith rough hairs, and having the 
form of a star. Do not approach too near this 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 37 

plant while it is in flower ; for its odor is not 
agreeable. This peculiarity, however, should not 
induce you to exclude it from your itagtre, where 
it will be very well placed, because of the singu- 
larity of its form. As to its smell, — which is 
not strong enough to incommode you, — I should 
not have mentioned it, but for the circumstance of 
its having caused this flower to be mistaken for a 
very diff"erent thing by the flies called flesh-flies ; 
which mistake has given rise to quite a curious 
observation in natural history. 

Have flies noses ? you will say, ladies. 

I must acknowledge that I do not know whether 
they have Sr have not noses ; although entomolo- 
gy, together with botany, are my favorite studies. 
This much, however, I do know — that they have 
the sense of smell. That this is certain you can 
ascertain for yourselves, by having a stapelia in 
bloom i;pon your ttagere. The flower of the sta- 
pelia smells like meat that has been kept too long; 
and flesh-flies, who lay their eggs on spoiled meat, 
are attracted to this flower by its smell. These 
eggs give birth to worms destined to become flies 
in their turn. If you shut flesh-flies up in a 



38 THE PAULOR GARDENER. 

chamber where there is a stapelia flower, they 
Mill come and lay eggs on this flower, taking it 
for flesh — an error which they cannot be led 
into by the sense of sight, for the stapelia flower 
does not resemble in any respect a piece of meat. 
Consequently this mistake can only arise from 
their being deceived by the smell ; from which 
fact naturalists draw the conclusion, not that they 
have noses, but that they have the sense of smell. 

Sedums and Mesembryanthemums. 

There is another family of plants, no less vari- 
"bus, no less rich in pretty and copiously flowering 
species, than the cactus family itself. These are 
the sedums ; among which I have already made 
you acquainted with the pretty, yellow, star- 
flowered sedum, (stone-crop,) which blooms with- 
out earth and without water, suspended by a 
thread to the wall of a room. 

Another species, that of the mesembryanthe- 
mums, — with numerous flowers of all the shades 
of red, from the color of fire to the palest rose, — 
belongs also to the series of succulent plants. The 
prettiest vai'ieties have been rendered dwarf by 



I 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 39 

the horticulture of our day. If their name — a 
little long and a little learned — seems disagree- 
able to you to pronounce, call them plainly ice- 
jjlants. This is the common name of the variety 
that is the most extensively cultivated, and the 
leaves of which, Avith the stalk also, are powdered 
white, as if covered with frost. 

There are also the crassulas, with their leaves 
elegantly imbricated, and their little bunches of 
flowers of the deepest red. You will find some, 
also, of a pale rose-color. Both are as perfect in 
form, and as brilliant in color, as the same plants 
are in their natural dimensions, of half a yard or 
more in height. 

I pass over some of the best. But when you 
have made your choice among the prettiest dwarf 
varieties of cactuses — of the kinds of opuntia, 
melocactus, echinocactus, — and when you have 
added to these stapelias, sedums, ice-plants, and 
crassulas, confining yourself to the finest varieties, 
— you will have not only a sufficiency to decorate 
your itagh-e, even if it be a large one, but also 
enough to fill an elegant basket, which will pro- 
duce the best cfl'ect in the middle of your stand. 



40 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

And then, during more than half of the year, you 
"vvill constantly have some of your dwarf succu- 
lent plants covered with pretty flowers. 

Culture of the Dwarf Succulent Plants. 
It only remains to give you some hints about 
the way of managing them. For this purpose it 
is necessary to say a few words about their tem- 
perament. Cactuses, in their native country, bear 
excessive heat and dryness for six or seven months 
without interruption, followed by deluges of rain. 
The most violent storm -rains in our latitudes 
afford but a very faint idea of those tropical del- 
uges. During the dry season, the vegetative life 
of the cactuses is almost quite suspended. Their 
sleep is then much more profound than that of the 
plants with us which lose their leaves in winter. 
Now, from the knowledge of these facts, we per- 
ceive what sort of management is most suitable 
for them. All those which give no sign of active 
vegetation — on which neither young shoots nor 
flower buds make their appearance — ought to be 
watered only once a week. You may abstain 
altogether from watering them ; there will be 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 41 

neither more nor less budding for it when the 
proper time comes. Continue the same treatment 
if, at the return of warm weather, the cactuses 
show no signs of flowering : leave them dry a 
month or two ; they will not die for it — no dan- 
ger of this. When they begin spontaneously to 
vegetate, begin to water them with w^ater of the 
temperature of the room ; at first moderately, 
afterwards a little more freely, but never to ex- 
cess. The floods of rain that they got in their 
native country do not hurt them there, because 
the tropical climate renders evaporation rapid. It 
would not b3 the same in your house. The quan- 
tity should be, a tablespoonful of water for the 
pots of the size of a tumbler, and a teaspoonful 
for those the size of a wine-glass. 

Necessity of depriving them of "Water during 
their Sleep. 

That you may perfectly luiderstand the neces- 
sity of not watering your cactuses during the 
sleep of their vegetation, I will relate to you what 
happened to a botanist, Avho, being extremely 
fond of cactuses, had a very fine collection of 



42 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

them. A friend sent him a box of cactuses from 
the province of Minas Geraes, in Brazil, which he 
hastened to put in pots in his conservatory, and 
at the same time put by in a drawer a double set 
of specimens, which he proposed to make presents 
of. Forced to set out on a long journey, he for- 
got the cactuses in his drawer ; and on his re- 
tiu-n home, after an absence of several months, he 
found them there, faded, withered, in so deplor- 
able a state that he thought them lost. Never- 
theless, he planted them, and began to water 
them by degrees. All recovered and flowered 
abundantly; while those which had been planted, 
and taken care of ever since their arrival, only 
flowered in part ; many did not flower at all. 
His gardener had been afraid of letting them 
suffer from thirst, and had given them too much 
to drink. 

Keep in mind, then, ladies, that in order that 
yovir cactuses may bloom, it is necessary that 
the periodic sleep of their vegetation should be 
complete ; and that it cannot be so if they be 
watered at the wrong time. As to temperature, 
they are of a temperament that accommodates 



THE rARLOR, GARDENER. 43 

itself very -well v/ith -what suits j-ourself. "When 
they bloom during the warm weather, put the 
ttagere before the open window some hours every 
day ; your cactuses will be the better for it ; 
their bloom will be more brilliant and of longer 
duration. 

The stapelias must be treated like the cactuses 
— no difference. The other succulent plants re- 
quire a little more water in winter ; their sleep 
being never so absolute as that of the cactuses 
and stapelias. Nevertheless, if you would have 
them to flower well when they wake, let them 
sleep. Do not water them during their sleep, 
except when they appear evidently to be suffering 
from thirst ; and then give them only just so 
much as is necessary to relieve their suffering. 



44 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 



CHAPTER IV. 
THE FLOWER-STAXD GARDEN. 

Manner of keeping it. —Plants bought in Bloom. — Plants to culti- 
vate on the Flower-stand. — Its Dimensions.— Climbing Plants. 

— Passion-flower. — Mandevillea suaveolens. — Wood Pink. — 
Thunbergia alata. — Climbing Double Violet. — Manner of cul- 
tivating it. — Plants for the Middle Part of the Flower-stand. — 
Camellia. — Methods to prevent the Buds from falling. — Man- 
agement in cultivating. — Ericas or Cape Heaths. — Pimeleas. — 
Mignionette as a Tree. — Manner of forming it. — Its Duration. 

— Necessity of loving Flowers in order to take good Care of 
them. 

Manner of keepim? a Flower-stand furnished 
with Flowers. 

A FLOWER-STAND is a very pretty piece of 
furniture, which may be a little more simple 
or a little more ornamented, according to the de- 
gree of simplicity or elegance of the furniture 
around it, with which it should harmonize. It 
makes a necessary part of that furniture. There 
are two different ways of making use of it : these 
must be considered separately. If you merely wish 



!"./#■ 







, *^4^" 



5 

^ 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 45 

flv>-«vers while you can get them from the garden- 
ers, agree with a gardener by profession, and he 
will keep your flower-stand furnished at all sea- 
sons with blooming plants. Your care will be 
confined to Avatering them and keeping them free 
from the dust. You will enjoy them ; but they 
will not be yovir work. 

Plants to cultivate on the Mower-stand. 
You will do better than that, if, having the 
leisure, you have the will also, to give assiduous 
attention yourself to the cultivation of the plants 
that are to adorn your flower-stand. I imagine 
this to be the case — that you are disposed to 
take a little of that trouble which is a pleasure, 
and to make of your flower-stand a real garden 
of your own. ^Ve will begin, if you please, in 
the month of November — at the time when the 
fall of the leaves brings back to the cities those 
who have passed the fine season in the country. 

Climbing Plants. 
Choose a flower- stand as large as the space 5'ou 
have to give it will allow ; keep it constantly 



46 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

with one side against the wall, so that you can 
put into it a trellis, shaped like a fan. The first 
thing now to be done is to cover this trellis with 
climbing plants ; they will not be the least inter- 
esting part of this miniature flower garden. Plant 
a passion-flower, as the principal ornament of this 
trellis ; let it be as wide and as high as it may, 
the passion-flower will soon cover the greater 
part of it. You mu^t add to this a somewhat 
rare plant, the Mandevillea suaveolois, and a very 
common plant, the wood pink. These three 
plants — the passion-flower, the Mandevillea, and 
the wood pink — bloom principally at the top ; 
and that the whole trellis may be ornamented 
equally with flowers, plant at each end a Thiin- 
bergia alata, and in the middle a double violet. 

The Thunbergia lays hold of any thing that is 
within its reach, without ever rising very high. 
It becomes covered with charming flowers, of a 
fine nankeen yellow, set off with a black spot in 
the middle. You find it, as well as the passion- 
flower and the Mandevillea, at all the green- 
houses. The price of these plants is never very 
high, and they accommodate themselves very well 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 47 

to the artificial climate of an iahabited room. 
Take good care not to buy them in bloom, even 
though you should be able to get them in full 
flower; take them at most in the bud; it will 
be much more agreeable to make them bloom 
yourself. 

Climbing Double Violet. 

Possibly you may never have seen a violet 
climbhig on a trellis. The culture of the double 
violet in this form is very common in Belgium 
and in all the north of France. It is not difficult. 

The double violet produces naturally, every 
year, a certain number of runners, like those by 
Avhich the strawberry is propagated. Attach to 
the trellis those runners which are so situated as 
to be able to take hold of it easily, and destroy all 
the others. The tufts in AA'hich each runner ter- 
minates will flower abundantly in this position. 
After they have bloomed, other runners will come 
out, which you must attacli to the trellis as you 
did the first ; so arranging them as that they shall 
not take possession of the space reserved for the 
other climbing plants. By this system, continued 



48 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

for some years, (time is necessary for every thing 
in horticulture,) the runners which have been 
raised and attached to the trellis will become 
nearly woody ; and every year, from the end of 
winter to the middle of spring, you will be able to 
gather from them a profusion of forced double 
violets, Avhose fragrance for you will far surpass 
that of the violets forced by the gardener, and 
which he makes you a present of for your money. 

Plants for the Middle Part of the Flower- 
stand. 

The middle part of the flower- stand is yet 
empty. To fill it Avell, place in the centre a fine 
camellia ; a Donkolerii ; or, if rose color be a 
favorite of yours, a marchioness of Exeter ; if you 
prefer white, an alba fiore jilena, a fimbriata, or an 
ochroleuca. There are at least five or six hun- 
dred kinds of camellias, with flowers very differ- 
ent from each other. !Make what choice you 
please ; only avoid taking for your flower-stand 
a plant that is inclined to grow too tall ; it wall 
injure the ornamental effect of the occupants of 
the trellis. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 49 

Management of Camellias. 

When you buy your camellia it should be full 
of buds that have attained to about half their size. 
If there are too many buds, above all, if there are 
two or three in a bunch close together, you must 
not hesitate to sacrifice a portion of them. But, 
as the very short stem by which the flower bud 
of the camellia is attached to the branch, is pre- 
cisely the most delicate part of it, unless you 
observe great caution in detaching the superfluous 
ones, all will fall, one after the other, and you will 
not obtain a single flower. Happily, it is easy to 
avoid this annoying result. With a very sharp 
penknife, cut off", horizontally, the upper half of 
the buds which you do not wish to preserve, 
taking care to shake the plant as little as possible, 
and especially not to touch the bud stems. The 
remaining half of those buds will very soon fall of 
itself, without occasioning the fall of the entire 
buds. These will bloom perfectly a month or two 
later. Moreover, take care not to water your 
camellia with water that is too cold. This in- 
junction is so important, that I am not afraid of 
4 



50 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

repeating it too often. Should its vegetation seem 
to you not vigorous enough, give to it, now and 
then, half a tumbler of the water that the dishes 
have been washed in. Frequently wash and wipe 
its leaves on both sides. Do all this, and it will 
bloom as beautifully in your flower-stand as if it 
had never quitted the greenhouse of the gardener 
who sold it to you. 

Mignionette as a Tree. 
Some pretty plants of Erica (cape heath) of 
the medium size varieties, and one or two pime- 
leas, — one with a white hanging flower, the other 
with a rose-colored, iipright one, — will complete 
the filling of the flower-stand. Do not fail to 
reserve, at each end, a little place for a plant of 
mignionette as a tree. You have probably never 
seen mignionette otherwise than in the ordinary 
form of an herbaceous plant ; and, as you do not 
live in the north of France, where these pretty 
shrubs are very much in fashion, it will be difli- 
cult for you to procure two tree mignionettes 
already formed. You must, therefore, form them 
for yourself. To do this, proceed as follows: 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 51 

Buy a pot of ordinary migiiionette. This pot 
■will probably contain a tuft composed of many 
plants, produced from seeds. Pull up all but 
one ; and, as the mignionctte is one of the most 
rustic of plants, -which may be ti-eated without 
any delicacy, the single plant that is left in the 
middle of the pot may be rigorously trimmed, 
leaving only one shoot. This shoot you must 
attach to a slender stick of "white osier. The 
extremity of this shoot Avill put forth a bunch 
of flower buds, that must be cut off entirely, 
leaving not a single bud. The stalk, in conse- 
quence of this treatment, -will put out a multi- 
tude of young shoots, that must be allowed to 
develop freely until they are about three inches 
and a half long. Then select out of these, four, 
six, or eight, according to the strength of the 
plant, with equal spaces between them. Now, 
Avith a slender rod of white osier, or better, 
with a piece of whalebone, make a hoop, and 
attach your shoots to it, supported at the proper 
height. When they have grown two or three 
inches longer, and are going to bloom, support 
them by a second, hoop, like the first. Let them 



52 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

bloom ; but take off the seed pods before they 
have tune to form, or the plant may perish. It 
will not be long before neAV shoots Avill appear 
just below the places where the flowers were. 
From among these new shoots choose the one on 
each branch which is in the best situation to re- 
place what you have nipped off. Little by little, 
the principal stalk, and also the branches, will 
become woody, and your mignionette will no 
longer be an herbaceous plant, except at its upper 
extremities, which will bloom all the year with- 
out interruption. It will be truly a tree mign- 
ionette, living for an indefinite period; for, with 
proper treatment, a tree mignionette will live 
from twelve to fifteen years. I have seen them 
in Holland double this age. 

Resources that the Flower-stand offers. 
Ornamented and managed as I have directed, 
your flower-stand Avill be a continual source of 
agreeable recreation. There will always be Avork 
about your plants. The pleasure of providing 
for their wants will be as agreeable to you as 
that of seeins them flower, one after another. 



THE PAUL OR G A R D E X E Tl . 53 

Their bloom will be the fruit of your own labor ; 
it will have been merited by the act of cultivating 
them. They will have for you a hundred times 
the value that the most beautiful plants would 
have which you bought, in bloom, from the 
gardener, and replaced by others without your 
having a hand in producing them. 

Moreover, young ladies, besides the plants 
with which I have just advised you to adorn 
your flower-stand, you have an immense lati- 
tude and many resources — unlimited, we may 
say — in the many varieties of the different spe- 
cies of other plants, equally worthy of your care. 
As we shall, in the course of this treatise, when 
engaged upon the subject of multiplying and cul- 
tivating plants, have occasion to make special 
mention of those just referred to, this need not 
be done here. I shall take care to make you 
acquainted with such as would figure to advan- 
tage in the flower- stand of your apartment ; 
which, if its situation be favorable enough, may 
form a companion to the garden on the mantel- 
piece, in addition to the garden on the 6tagtre. 

And pray observe, mothers, — to you do I now 



54 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

address myself, — that flowers are like children : 
in order to bring them up well, you must love 
them. If there be among you any who do not 
love flowers enough to bestow upon them the at- 
tentions that they require, neither the preceding 
counsels nor those of the following chapters will 
be intended for any such. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 



CHAPTER V. 
THE PORTABLE GREENHOUSE. 

Its Construction. — Plants that can be cultivated there. — Its Prin- 
cipal Utility. — Propagating Ornamental Plants. — Sowing.— 
Sowing of Azalea Seed. — Transplanting and Rearing the Young 
Plants. — The same as regards Rhododendron Seeds. — Sowing 
Orange Seeds. — Rearing the Plants. — Sowing the Seeds of 
Flemish Pinks. — Sowing of Ranunculus Seeds. — Separation 
of the Young Offsets. — Time of their First Flowering. 

milE VARIETY of plants that may be culti- 
-L vated ill an apartment is greatly increased, 
when, instead of ornamenting the stand of the 
parlor with a large basket filled with an assort- 
ment of dwarf succulent plants, the same spot is 
devoted to a portable greenhouse. Greenhouses 
of this kind may, as well as flower-stands, be 
ornamented externally in any manner conformable 
to the style of the rest of the furniture. This 
point depends entirely on the taste and fortune of 
those who propose to make use of them. 



56 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

The Cold Portable Greenhouse. 
The portable greenhouse may be cold ; that is. 
without any special means of warming it. It may 
also be tempered ; that is, furnished with an ap- 
paratus for producing artificial heat. Except for 
the size and the decoration, more or less elegant, 
it is nothing more than a great hand-glass,* of 
which the panes of glass, supported on a light iron 
frame, are arranged by means of slips of lead. 
Many of the upper panes should be made to open 
by sliding, as well to let air into the interior, as 

* Hand-Glasses — Portable frames or covers, formed of iron, 
zinc, or wood, and glazed. These glasses differ from bell-glasses in 
being longer and composed of numerous small pieces of glass, which 
are fastened together by narrow strips of lead. Hand-glasses are 
generally square; but they may be made of an octagon, or any 
other shape that may be found most convenient; and they are some- 
times made with a pane to open to admit air. or with the upper part 
to take off. Tliis is very convenient; for as hand-glasses are chiefly 
used for protecting half-hardy plants during winter, it is necessary 
to give them air every fine day, and it is very troublesome to be 
obliged to lift the hand-glass off the plant, and to lay it on one side, 
whenever this is done. Bell-glasses, on the contrary, being princi- 
pally for preventing the evaporation of moisture from the leaves of 
cuttings, do not require any opening, as the plants seldom want any 
air till they have rooted. — Mrs. Loudon's Ladies' Companion for 
the Flower Garden. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 57 

that you may be able to tend and cultivate the 
plants within. 

A multitude of interesting experiments in hor- 
ticulture may be made, and charming results ob- 
tained, in the small space contained within a cold 
portable greenhouse. Its pots, none of them 
exceeding the medium size, may contain a com- 
plete assortment of the finest plants that are found 
in greenhouses, — not only in such as are not, but 
in such as are, -warmed by artificial means. If the 
portable greenhouse has not a special apparatus 
for warming it, it must be placed in a room where 
people habitually sit, of which it must necessarily 
take the temperature ; and this temperature is 
pretty nearly that of the artificially warmed 
greenhouse. 

Principal Utility of the Cold Portable Green- 
house. 

It is quite probable, ladies, that many of your 
familiar acquaintance are, like yourself, fond of 
parlor gardening. If you possess a cold portable 
greenhouse, you may, if you please, multiply 
indefinitely the choicest ornamental plants ; and, 



58 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

after having reserved for yourself the quantity 
necessary for keeping up your own stock, there 
will remain a large supply, which will afford you 
the means of contributing to the enjoyment of 
your friends by furnishing them with plants. 

We must first fill the pots with good sandy 
heath soil,* and then we can proceed with our 
work at our ease. Nothing is more agreeable, 
whether we keep the products or give them away, 
than to see them arrive at a presentable degree 
of development. 

For the purpose of propagation you have three 
methods at your option : by soicing, by slips, and 
by grafting. Neither of these is difficult in itself; 
attention and a great deal of patience are the only 
requisites to success in all three. 

Sowing. 

The list of ornamental plants which can be 
propagated in pots in the portable greenhouse is 
very long, even if we limit ourselves to gardening 
in the house alone. We will select from among 
those most worthy of attention ; and their propa- 

* Peat mixed with sand. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 59 

gation by seeds will give a just idea of how you 
should proceed with any others that you may 
have a fancy for. 

Sowing of Azalea Seed. 
Let us begin with azaleas. Procure seeds of 
the most admired variety ; they will not always 
produce a shrub exactly like that from which the 
seeds were gathered. But so much the better. 
When your young plants bloom for the first time, 
you will be agreeably surprised to find remarkable 
novelties, either in the larger size of the corolla or 
in the brilliancy or delicacy of the colors. Those 
whose bloom does not seem to you satisfactory — 
and this will be the smaller number — can be 
made use of as stocks to receive the grafts of such 
varieties as you may prefer. Take care not to 
cover the azalea seed with more than the eighth 
of an inch of earth, which you must keep con- 
stantly damp, without excess of moisture, by water- 
ing often and giving very little water at a time. 
In your portable greenhouse the pots containing 
the azalea seeds come in contact only with air 
loaded with moisture, which being seldom changed, 



60 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

scarcely any evaporation takes place ; whilst, the 
temperature there being mild and very equable, 
the conditions are the best possible for obtaining 
a good germination of the seeds. Each pot having 
received but a small number of seeds, the young 
azaleas will sprout at their ease, without crowding 
one another. As soon as they have acquired con- 
sistence enough to bear transplanting, pull them 
up, one by one, and plant them singly in little pots, 
where they will continue to grow until they have 
become too large to remain in the portable green- 
house. Then take your share, and distribute the 
rest ; it is a sort of present that cannot fail to be 
acceptable. 

The seeds of rhododendrons are sowed exactly 
in the same manner as the seeds of azaleas, and 
with the same results. 

Sowing of Orange Seeds. 
Among the shrubs that are easily propagated 
by seeds in the portable greenhouse is the orange. 
Sow, for this purpose, seeds of very ripe oranges 
or lemons ; these last are most easily reared. 
Instead of pure heath soil, these seeds require a 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 61 

mixture of heath soil and good manure. By 
those "who carry on gardening as a trade, the pots 
in which orange and lemon seed are sown are 
buried in a hotbed, covered with a glazed frame ; 
but this is because they are in haste : for them, to 
gain time is to gain money. You, ladies, who 
are not under the empire of the same necessities, 
by sowing your seeds in February, a time of the 
year when there is fire in your apartment, will have 
the temperature of the interior of your portable 
greenhouse sufficiently high for them to come 
up in fifteen or twenty days. Your young trees 
will be much better off' under the shelter of your 
portable greenhovise than any where else ; air or 
light in excess would hurt them during the first 
period of their growth. You will have the pleas- 
ure of seeing them grow fast enough if you water 
them moderately. Towards the month of July 
they will already be strong ; the panes of the 
greenhouse ought frequently to be kept open, to 
habituate the young orange trees to contact with 
the air. Some of them can be grafted towards 
the first of November ; the others in the spring of 
the following year ; and when you see the first 



62 THE paRlor gardener. 

floAvers open, this will give you more pleasure 
than all the orange flowers that could be brought 
to you. 

Sowings of Flemish Pink Seed. 
Side by side Avith your sowings of azaleas, rho- 
dodendrons, and orange, sow seeds of Flemish 
pinks, in the same mixture of heath soil and 
manure that I have directed as the most suitable 
for oranges and lemons. Transplanted when an 
inch or two high, the plants -will, the ensuing 
year, bear the choicest pinks, and these will be 
among the finest ornaments of your garden. 

Sowings of Kanunculus Seed. 
Sow also ranunculus seeds. This flower is a 
charming one — faultless in both form and color; 
nothing is wanting in it but perfume ; and for 
chamber gardening this is scarcely a defect. For 
the sowings of ranunculus seeds, procure a little 
cowdung, very dry and reduced to powder. After 
having slightly wet this maniuT, sow the seeds, 
with but a very shallow covering. They will 
come up in a few days. When you see the lit- 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 63 

tie leaves of the seedling wither and turn yellow, 
cease altogether to -water them. A few days 
afterwards, when the contents of the pots are 
perfectly dry, take the pots out of the cold por- 
table greenhouse ; crumble these contents care- 
fully, and pass them through a tin colander with 
very small holes. There will remain in the col- 
ander little plants of ranunculus, each one not 
more than an inch or two long. 

You are afraid, perhaps, ladies, that these so 
very delicate plants will make you wait a long 
time for their bloom. You are mistaken. When 
spring sets in, plant them in pots of the common 
size, in a mixture of good ordinary garden earth 
and manure ; they will all bloom before the end 
of the warm weather. 

You see how many things you can accomplish 
in horticulture, under the cold portable green- 
house, Avith nothing more than sowings. Slips 
offer you pleasures not less varied. Grafting, 
which your taper fingers, habituated to delicate 
work, can execute to such perfection, will add 
to your stock of enjoyments. You will after 
some time — not a long one — have around you 



64 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

a whole generation of ornamental plants, fnll of 
vitality, that your care will have brought into 
life, and j'our solicitude will have made to pros- 
per. It will end in your becoming attached to all 
these charming vegetable productions, as to so 
many friends of your own creation. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 65 



CHAPTER VI. 

SLIPS IN THE PORTABLE GREENHOUSE — 
COLD OR HOT. 

Art of sticking Slips. — How the Slips talie Root. — Slips in the Cold 
Portable Greenhouse. — Slips of Dwarf Succulent Plants. — 
What is necessary to make them take Root. — Slips from I^eaves 
and Fragments of Leaves.— Slips of Begonias. — Slips of Dwarf 
Bengal Roses. — Of China Roses. — Of Pelargoniums. — Of In- 
dian Chrysanthemums. — Slips in the Hot Portable Greenhouse. 
— How this Greenhouse is constructed. — Slips of Camellias 
destined to be Grafted. 

Aj:t of Sticking Slips. 

THE prodigious multiplicity of resources con- 
trived by Nature for the propagation of 
plants is assuredly one of the most curious of all 
the facts revealed by the study of vegetable phys- 
iology. Life is disseminated with such profu- 
sion in all the parts of plants, that Avith many 
of them the least fragment placed in favorable 
circumstances becomes a complete plant. The 
art of rearing from slips rests upon the knowl- 
5 



66 THE PARLOR GARDE XER. 

edge of facts of this nature. If it has never hap- 
pened to you to stick any, or to see any stuck, 
I will inform you that a slip is a part of a plant 
detached from the mother plant and put in the 
earth, in the hope that it -svill be able to take 
root there. 

What is necessary to make a slip take root ? 
It is necessary for it to live long enough on its 
own vital energy for young roots to form, and 
to draw nourishment from the soil. When the 
tissue of the plant is soft, and contains a good 
deal of water, and when the branch that is de- 
tached to serve as a slip remains exposed to the 
air, the slip will not take root ; it dries too rap- 
idly ; the operation fails. On the contrary, roots 
always form when, by the exclusion of the ex- 
ternal air, evaporation is abated ; whilst, at the 
same time, the lower part of the slip is in a 
medium kept constantly moist, which solicits its 
taking root. 

Slips in the Cold Portable Greenhouse. 
Already, from what I have said, ladies, you 
have a glimpse of the utility that your cold 



I 




Fig. 4. — Cold Portable Greenhouse. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER 67 

portable greenhouse will possess for propagating 
every kind of plant by slips. We may begin 
by your pretty dwarf succulent plants, detached 
fragments of which will, under the shelter which 
it affords, take root with marvellous docility. 
Take, for example, a charming opuntia, and sep- 
arate one of its little shoots, by cutting it at the 
base with a very sharp penknife. If you put this 
shoot in the earth as a slip at the moment that 
you cut it, the surface of the wound in contact 
with the earth will rot, and not a root will come 
forth. To be successful, you must lay the slip 
on one of the shelves of your itagh-e, and leave 
it for two or thi-ee days, that the wound may 
begin to scar over before it is planted ; when 
this takes place, plant it as if it had roots — and 
indeed it will not be long before it has them. 
To assure yourself of this, you need not pull it 
Mp, as children do, who, when they have put a 
bean in the earth, take it up once or twice a day 
to see if it is going to sprout — so that it never 
^omes up. So soon as your slip has taken pos- 
session of the earth vvith its young roots, it will 
not fail to advise you of it by giving birth to 



68 THE PARLOR GARDE XER. 

little shoots at the upper part. The growing of 
the upper part of any plant whatever, propagated 
by slips, is the most certain sign of the existence 
of young roots. All the dwarf succulent plants 
of the garden on the itaghre can, like the opun- 
tia, be propagated by slips, in the cold portable 
greenhouse ; only taking care that the part sep- 
arated as a slip be allowed to dry and begin to 
form a scab by contact with the air before 
planting it. 

Slips from Leaves. 
If you have renewed the contents of your 
flower- stand every season, you will have at the 
proper time achimenes in bloom. This pretty 
plant is easily cultivated ; and its numerous tubu- 
lated flowers, nearly the same in form with those 
of the paulownia, are in color of a beautiful 
light violet, or of a fiery red, regularly marked 
with yellow and purple within. Take off a leaf 
of achimenes and stick it by its stem ; it will take 
root, and this single leaf will in a short time be- 
come a perfect plant, similar to the one from 
which it was detached. But if the species that 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 69 

5'ou dosire to propagate by this means is rare, 
and you possess but one leaf, for which you are 
indebted to the kindness of an amateur, split 
this leaf down through the principal rib; split 
afterwards the two halves in four or five pieces, 
through the side ribs ; and these fragments, 
treated as slips, will not fail to take root. But, 
as this plant is of very loose tissue, and evap- 
oration might cause the slips to perish in a few 
days, even in your cold greenhouse, you will act 
prudently if, besides the shelter which it affords, 
you cover them separately, each with a small glass 
turned upside down. 

Slips of Begonia. 
Another genus of plants, not less agTeeable, the 
genus Begonia, is propagated by slips of leaves 
in a manner somewhat different. The stems of 
the leaves of begonias are of a cylindrical form ; 
those of the begonia manicata, or cuffed begonia, 
are ornamented with an elegant fringe for about 
one half of their length. If you stick one of 
these leaves in your portable greenhouse, do not 
be frightened, if, after the lapse of some days, the 



70 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

entire leaf fades and then draws up as if it had 
been shrivelled by a violent sun- stroke ; the 
vegetable life has withdrawn into the stem ; the 
operation has not been necessarily unsuccessful. 
"SVhen the leaf is dry, take the stem out of the 
earth ; it will not yet have roots, properly speak- 
ing, but all around its lower edge you will dis- 
tinguish little swellings composing a sort of roll, 
tolerably prominent : these are the rudiments of 
the roots ready to come out. This leaf-stem, 
althovigh hollow within, is thick and fleshy. 
Split it into five or six slips, down its length ; 
and each of these slips, provided it has at its 
base a portion of that little roll from which the 
roots are to come out, will become, in a short 
time, a fine plant of begonia manicata. Just as 
many pieces as you have been able to split that 
stem into, just so many thriving slips Avill you 
have ; all will take root. 

An indefinite variety of plants, as well those 
generally found only in warmed greenhouses as 
those which are seen in others, can be thus prop- 
agated. It will be for you an inexhaustible source 
of recreation, and at the same time a precious 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 71 

resource from which to renew the contents of the 
flower-stand and itagere, at all seasons. 

Bose Slips. 
To the above you can add a large collection 
of roses of diminutive size, selected from the 
series of Bengalese and Chinese roses ; the Lilli- 
putian Bengals, which are reared in a pot of the 
size of an egg-cup ; the Chinese dwarfs, of a 
bright red, which live very well in a tumbler 
of the ordinary size. The least fragment of a 
branch of one of these, stuck in the cold portable 
greenhouse, will take root and display its flowers 
the first year. 

Slips of Pelargoniums and Chrysanthemums. 
Do not forget to stick also a full supply of 
the prettiest species of fancy pelargoniums and 
chrysanthemums of India ; especially pompone * 
chrysanthemums, charming little plants, very pro- 
lific in flowers. They bloom all the winter, and 
present, we may say, with the exception of pure 

* From the word pompon, the worsted ornameut worn in soldiers' 
caps, in lieu of feathers. 



72 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

blue, all the shades of the rainbow, and, in addi- 
tion to these, the purest white, and a deep pur- 
ple, so deep as to be almost black. 

These chrysanthemums possess, as regards slips, 
a peculiar property, worthy of your attention ; they 
furnish slips at all the various stages of their vege- 
tation. Of such kinds as accord, in their natural 
dimensions, with the space that you have reserved 
for them, take, for sticking, young shoots between 
one and two inches in length. These slips will 
quickly take root, and in due time attain the nor- 
mal size of their species ; after which they will 
bloom. On the other hand, if you wish to stick 
some whose dimensions greatly exceed the space 
that can be disposed of in their favor, wait until 
the flower buds terminating the upper extremities 
of branches have attained about half of their size. 
Then detach such branches for slips, and plant 
them in pots, where they will very soon take root ; 
their buds will continue to develop, and you will 
obtain as fine a bloom as that which remains on 
the entire plant. These slips, however, will not 
grow ; they remain of the same size as when first 
planted. 




Fisr. 5. — Warm Portable Greenhouse. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. ^6 

Slips in the Warni Portable Greenhouse. 

Until now, ladies, I have spoken to you of such 
slips only as can be reared with success in the 
cold portable greenhouse. But you may rear a 
great many more, and these taken from the most 
interesting plants, if, for your cold greenhouse a 
warm one be substituted. 

To say nothing of form, which may vary ac- 
cording to taste, the essential difference between 
these two portable greenhouses consists in one 
of them being warmed at will ; to which pur- 
pose its shape and construction must, of course, 
be adapted. It must contain a lamp and a little 
reservoir for water ; this reservoir having an 
earthen-ware cover, upon which the pots wi^;h 
the slips are placed. This cover is pierced with a 
hole, into which a funnel may be placed, for 
the purpose of renewing the water as it evapo- 
rates ; and there must be lateral holes in the res- 
ervoir, for the steam to escape through. Under- 
neath this apparatus is the place for the lamp, — 
generally a spirit lamp, — which is lighted only 
when you wish to raise the temperature of the 



74 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

greenhouse. Although the heat produced by the 
flame of the lamp is not very great, it suffices to 
-warm the water in the reservoir, and the other 
contents of the greenhouse, to the degree requisite 
for maintaining its atmosphere at the proper tem- 
perature — say at from fifty-three to sixty-four 
degrees of the thermometer. 

Slips of Camellias. 

Provided with this addition to your resources, 
you may now add greatly to the variety of your 
floral decorations, and, whilst doing this, enjoy 
the pleasure of watching the growth of plants 
which refuse to take root in the cold greenhouse, 
but prove perfectly conformable to your wishes in 
this respect when provided with lodgings better 
suited to their tastes. 

Let us bogin by sticking slips of camellia there. 
This king of the shrubs of the cold greenhouse 
experiences great difficulty in making his start in 
life there. The labor of striking root proves gen- 
erally too great for his vital powers, unless aided 
by artificial heat. Thus aided, however, as they 
now are in your warm portable greenhouse, these 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 75 

slips will form their roots in the space of from 
fifteen to twenty days. 

You are already aware, ladies, that the most 
beautiful varieties of the camellia, although they 
can take root from the slips, produce, by this 
means of propagating them, only ill-shaped, puny 
plants, that are little disposed to flower well. Your 
slips should be taken only from single-flowered 
camellias ; or, if from the double-flowered, then 
the white or the pink only. From these you can 
obtain all the slips you need ; and these slips will 
become shrubs as vigorous as you can desire. By 
grafting on these shrubs, when a year or eighteen 
months old, you may multiply the choicest species 
and varieties ; their bloom will be all that you 
can wish. 

Grafting is another charming operation of hor- 
ticulture, which you could not easily realize in 
the cold portable conservatory. In the warm one, 
on the contrary, you may graft all sorts of orna- 
mental shrubs, and the success of your grafts is 
assured beforehand ; not one will fail. 



76 THE PARLOR GARDENER, 



CHAPTER VII. 
GRAFTS IN THE PORTABLE GREENHOUSE. 

Of Grafting in general. — Resources that it offers for fixing the Fu- 
gitive Sub-varieties. — Extent to which Grafting is possible. — 
Tomatoes u|)on Potatoes. — Rice upon Phalaris. — Orange Graft. 
— Manner of Operating. — Wrappings of Woollen Yarn. — Appli- 
cations of the above Process. — Pontoise Graft. — Grafting the 
Camellia. — The Camellia in its Native Country. 

Of Grafts in general. 

BEFORE learning how to perform the different 
modes of grafting which belong to the domain 
of parlor horticulture, you may, perhaps, ladies, 
Avish to be informed what grafting itself is, con- 
sidered in a general point of view. Grafting, 
then, is, if I may be permitted to use the expres- 
sion, a forced marriage, often very badly as- 
sorted. Of this particular kind of forced mar- 
riage, the consequences cannot be happy, except 
when the two individuals, united without having 
been consulted, are very near relations ; that is to 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 77 

say, when they belong to species or varieties very 
proximate to each other. In the portable green- 
house, both cold and warm, we have just been 
practising, with complete success, the operation 
called slipping, in a variety of ways. Well, then, 
grafting is still another kind of slipping. Instead 
of putting the .slip in the earth, that it may there 
live by its OAvn roots, we join it on to another 
plant, where a piece has been cut away to make 
room for it. Then, instead of putting out roots 
of its own, that it may di'aw from the earth the 
sustenance which it requires, the graft incor- 
porates itself Avith the plant to which it has been 
attached, and feeds upon the stores provided by 
the latter for its own support. This it does 
without changing its own nature, or modifying in 
any way that of the other. You may have re- 
marked this in gardens. If a plum stock, upon 
which an apricot has been grafted, puts out young 
shoots below the graft, these are plum shoots. 
In like manner, a sweetbrier stock with a rose 
grafted on it, produces only branches of sweet- 
bi'ier, exactly such as they would have been had 
the plant never been grafted upon. On the other 



78 THE PARLOK GARDENER. 

hand, the graft, and all produced by it, retains 
the nature of its parent plant as perfectly un- 
changed as if it had continued to form part of 
it. Owing to this law, results the most curious 
and precious are easily obtained in horticulture. 
Varieties, and fugitive sub- varieties, which it is 
impossible to reproduce by sowing, difficult even 
to preserve by slips, are fixed and propagated 
indefinitely. 

Survey of Grafts that are possible. 
That I may not have to repeat, I will remark 
now, ladies, that the domain of grafting, the 
extent to which successful grafting is possible, 
is very great ; so great that it has not yet been 
completely explored. You know, as every body 
does, that fruit trees and roses are grafted. I am 
gomg to have the pleasure of making you graft, 
in your portable greenhouse, oranges and camel- 
lias, wherewith to furnish your balcony garden 
when it shall come to be established. I am going 
also to make j'ou plant a simple and modest 
potato in a box, that you may have the pleasure 
of grafting on its stalks shoots of tomatoes. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 79 

Yes, shoots that will bloom and produce their 
fruit, while the vegetation of the potato is run- 
ning its career and continuing to form its tiibers. 
On closing the account, you will gather potatoes 
enough for a dish, and tomatoes enough to make 
a sauce for the beef stew, to be served with the 
potatoes. I M'ill lay a wager, madam, that this 
tomato sauce will have a more exquisite flavor 
for your palate than any your cook ever pre- 
pared before, let her be the very best of all possi- 
ble cooks. 

When you procure an aquarium, you may cul- 
tivate rice in it, which will come to perfect ma- 
turity. You must graft shoots of this rice upon 
seeds of the species phalaris ; and you will see 
that they will not grow the less healthily, nor form 
their ears the less perfectly for being grafts. I 
tell you all this beforehand, in order that you 
may at once form an idea of what it may be pos- 
sible to accomplish by grafting, even when re- 
stricted to the narrow limits of horticulture in 
the parlor. 



80 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

Orange Grafts. 

Here are the young stocks, the product of the 
orange and lemon seeds sown by yovi a year 
ago. They are the size of a quill ; their wood has 
consistence, their vegetation is vigorous ; it is 
time to graft on them. Let us take for grafts 
young shoots of a myrtle-leaved China orange — 
one of the prettiest varieties to cultivate in an 
apartment, whether on account of its numerous 
flowers, which are fragrant, but not too strongly 
so, or on account of the fruits that succeed these 
flowers, and which, preserved in sugar or in 
brandy, are a favorite treat for a numerous class 
of consumers. 

About half way up the stock, you make choice 
of a leaf very green and well formed ; at the fork 
of this leaf — that is to say, at the point where it 
connects with the stalk — there is an eye, which 
eye, if left there, would produce a side branch. 

With a newly- sharpened penknife, cut a little 
way into the wood, above and beloAv the eye, 
making these cuts slanting, so that a small portion 
of the stalk, containing that eye, shall be sep- 



THE PAULO R GARDENER. »1 

arated and fall, -without the leaf being detached. 
Now you have a cutting, the size and form of 
which you must examine with care. This being 
done, you mvist then, for the graft that is to oc- 
cupy the vacancy just made by you, select a little 
branch of myrtle-leaved orange, and the lower 
end of this must be cut into such shape as to tit 
very exactly into the place cut in the stock. As 
the graft, if left there after being fitted, would 
fall apart at the least shake, it requires to be 
fastened in its place, until it shall have taken firm 
hold and incorporated itself with the stock. This 
is eff'ected by putting a bandage on. But here a 
difficulty presents itself, which has caused many 
a failure, but ma}-, however, easily be surmounted 
by a little attention. If you do not draw the 
bandage tight enough, it will not hold the two 
surfaces in contact, and this would prevent the 
success of the operation. If, on the other hand, 
you draw it too tight, this will interfere with 
the circulation of the snp ; your graft will be 
strangled, as the gardeners say. Take care, then, 
to adjust your bandage perfectly — avoiding both 
extremes ; tight enough, but only just tight 
6 



82 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

enough, to keep the graft firmly in its place. Em- 
ploy for this purpose untwisted woollen thread, 
which, in case you have drawn it somewhat too 
tight, will, from its elasticity, accommodate itself 
to Avhat the sap requires, and prevent strangling. 

Applications of the above Method of Grafting. 
All graftings of this sort that can be made 
on other shrubs with persistent leaves, besides 
orange trees, and especially upon daphnes and 
myrtles, will prove completely successful, pro- 
vided that at the time you graft them these shrubs 
are in full sap — that is, that their vegetation is 
in full activity. Strictly speaking, in ornamental 
shrubs with persistent leaves, the sap is never 
completely stationary, as it is in winter with 
those that lose their leaves. They have, how- 
ever, a half repose in winter ; after which their 
sap begins to flow again with renewed energy. 
This is the most favorable time for grafting them. 

Grafting a la Pontoise. 
As to the orange, its vital principle is so very 
active that you can, without fear, trust a graft 




Fig 6. — Graft k la Pontoise. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 83 

quite full of flower buds ready to bloom, to a 
seedling stock a year or eighteen months old. 
The graft should be of a diameter nearly equal 
to that of the stock ; it -will take directly. The 
course of the sap is not sensibly interrupted, and 
the buds will open as if they had remained upon 
the shrub from which they were detached. In 
all cases, the entire stock above the graft should 
be removed, so that the portion of the stock be- 
low the graft shall form merely the lower part of 
the trunk of the tree, whilst all above shall be 
formed from the graft exclusively. If this sort 
of grafting, named by the French gardeners graft- 
ing a la pontolse, were conducted in the open air, 
the evaporation from the leaves would kill the 
graft before it took. It can succeed only when 
excluded from contact with the air. Your orange 
trees grafted in this manner will be perfectly 
sheltered under the glass of your portable gi-een- 
house ; which you must take care to keep close 
shut, until your grafts, by continuing to grow, 
give you assurance that they have taken. 



84 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

Grafting Camellias. 

Now, ladies, that you know how to graft 
orange trees, you can, without further teaching, 
graft the single camellias that you have multi- 
plied by slips ; the proceeding is exactly the 
same. You must not, however, take for grafts 
— as you did for the orange — branches bearing 
flower buds ; the flower buds would not bloom, 
and the flower-bearing branches would with dif- 
ficulty be made to grow to the stock. You also 
already know that the bud of the camellia only 
takes with certainty in the warm greenhouse ; 
unaided by artificial heat, the sap of the camellia, 
much less active than that of the orange, would 
not suffice to assure the success of the grafting. 

Moreover, I would have you remark, ladies, 
that grafting off'ers you infinite resources for re- 
juvenating old camellias that have gone out of 
fashion. Graft upon their boughs, whatever their 
age may be, young shoots of camellia, of the kind 
that may be most in fashion at the time. Camel- 
lias, like yourselves, are subject to the caprices 
of fashion. These grafts will always take ; the 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 85 

camellia in its native country being a sturdy tree, 
of a very robust temperament, which it partly 
preserves in the conservatories of Europe and 
America. If it should ever happen to you to 
make a pleasure trip to Japan, — it might so hap- 
pen to any body, — you would see that, although 
the camellia is a sacred tree, which they plant 
round the temples, while its flowers are used in 
making garlands for religious festivals, they treat 
it in other respects with but little ceremony. 
You would see entire woods of them, of great 
extent, where every camellia is trimmed up to a 
single stem, as straight as a hop-pole. Do you 
know what they do when these camellias are of 
an age to be cut doAvn ? They make of them, 
ladies, simply handles for brooms, or spades, or 
other utensils ; they are intended for nothing else. 
Do not expect, in going to Japan, the country 
of the camellia, to see this charming shrub such 
as you see it here. The Japanese gardeners do 
not trouble themselves much in bringing it to 
perfection. Your camellias, that you have reared 
from slips and grafted with your own hands, 
might serve as models to those that figure in the 
gardens of the Emperor of Japan. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
THE HOUSE AQUARIUM. 

Aquariums. — Travelling Botanists. — The Victoria Regia. — The 
House Aquarium. — Its Construction. — What causes the Cor- 
ruption of Stagnant Water. — Means of avoiding it in the House 
Aquarium. — The Cobbler. — Interesting Habits of this Fish. — 
Aquatic Plants for the Aquarium. — Hydrocharis. — Pontede- 
ria. — Mimosa Pudica, or Aquatic Sensitive Plant. — Rice grafted 
upon Phalaris. — Manner of grafting it. — Aquatic Ranunculus. 
— Its Manner of Vegetation. 

The Aquarium. 

ALL OF you, ladies, are acquainted with aqua- 
riums ; most of you have little ones of your 
uwn, got up without expense, and I do not pro- 
pose to you to attempt having them on the grand 
scale that ^Ir. Ysabeau describes. His description, 
however, is so interesting, that I will not omit it. 
He says, — speaking of large gardens, — that an 
aquarium is a conservatory, of a square or oval 
form, with a ridged roof, the interior of which 
encloses a basin in which ornamental aquatic 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 87 

plants are cultivated. You exclaim at this word, 
and stop me short by observing that the culture 
of aquatic plants is beyond the powers of the par- 
lor gardener. If this be your opinion, ladies, 
permit me to say, that you are under a great 
mistake, and I shall endeavor to convince you of 
it. But let me first inform you, a little more in 
detail, what an aquarium is. 

There exists among the learned men a class, 
essentially adventurous, who have a horror of the 
fireside, security, and repose. These are the trav- 
elling botanists ; men who are always on the 
road, (when they happen to be in a country where 
there are roads,) to discover vegetable rarities 
and novelties. I have had occasion to call your 
attention to them in speaking of dwarf succulent 
plants of the cactus family. Among the novelties 
with which these indefatigable seekers have been 
enriching our collections for some years past, are 
found quite a large number of aquatic plants from 
the tropical regions. Among these is the great 
nenuphar of the River of the Amazons, the Vic- 
toria regia — true queen of the tropical waters. 

So long as the number of hothouse aquatic 



88 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

plants -was not too great, people contented them- 
selves with lodging them in the reservoir where 
the Avater destined for watering was kept. But 
when the Victoria regia arrived in Ein-ope, the 
leaves of which, unfolded upon the tranquil waters, 
measured more than a yard in diameter, the bota- 
nists perceived the propriety of lodging it and 
other beautiful tropical aquatic plants of largely 
dimensions, conformably to their rank, in basins 
of tepid water, within hothouses, which are, at 
present, very numerous in Europe, and are desig- 
nated under the name of aquarbuns. 

You understand, ladies, that this preamble is 
not at all designed to pave the way to counselling 
you to convert your parlor into a basin ; Avhich, 
by the help of a thermo-siphon, being kept at the 
temperature of the waters of the River of the Ama- 
zons, you might have the satisfaction of seeing 
grow and bloom there the Victoria regia. I am 
going to propose something less impracticable. 

House Aquarium. 
The house which you occupy is one into which 
water is brought. You have a parlor on the 



I 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 89 

ground floor, and a vaulted cellar under this par- 
lor. These circumstances permit you to have a 
house aquarium, of which it is now my business 
to. show you the advantages in regard to parlor 
horticulture. 

In the middle of your parlor you must place a 
table, with four legs, in the form of columns, two 
of which legs must be hollow, and have pipes 
within them ; one to receive the water when it 
comes, and the other to conduct it off. In the 
middle of this table, an elegant glass basin, thick 
enough to be strong, must be supported by four 
hollow columns of polished brass, similar to those 
which sustain the beam of a pair of scales. The 
pipe enclosed in one of the legs of the table must 
be prolonged through one of these columns, and a 
swan's beak at the top of the column will pour a 
continued stream of water into the basin, Avhich 
water will escape by an opening of a suitable 
diameter, contrived for the purpose, in one of the 
columns at the opposite side of the basin. 



90 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

Fish that ought to be put in it. 

Before speaking to you of the plants that the 
water of youx- aquarium can nourish, and of the 
culture of these plants, I will answer an objection 
which naturally presents itself here : the water 
of your basin, you will say, although renewed by 
a continued stream, cannot fail to be corrupted, 
and to fill your house with a marshy smell, which 
will be as disagreeable as unhealthy. 

Here is another mistake ; and so you will ac- 
knowledge, if you permit me to give you some 
words of explanation on the subject of stagnant 
water. When water exhales an odor of putrid- 
ity, it is not the water itself that is corrupted ; it 
is the animal matter which it holds in suspension ; 
it is, above all, the thousands of animalcula 
which are born, live, multiply, and die there 
with a prodigious rapidity, and of which water, 
to all appearance most pure, contains hordes 
without nvunber. But, if you place in the aqua- 
rium living fish, they will nourish themselves 
with these animalcula as well as with the animal 
and vegetable matter held in suspension in the 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 91 

water ; and that of the aquarium will never ex- 
hale the odor of stagnant water. 

If you do not like one fish better than another, 
and have no preference for the gold fish of China, 
who are in possession of the privilege of con- 
stantly peopling the basins, I would advise you, 
ladies, to adopt the pretty little fish named by the 
naturalists epinocJie, and well known under its 
vulgar name of cobbler, because of the point, in 
the shape of an awl, M'ith which its back is 
armed. The manners of this fish, that you can 
study at leisure through the transparent walls of 
your aquarium, are ver)'' interesting. It alone, 
among all the known fish, makes a nest, which 
it does out of the refuse parts of the aquatic 
plants, and in this nest the female deposits her 
eggs. Both male and female, after the eggs are 
hatched, take assiduous care of the young family. 

Plants to put in the Aquarium. 

Pardon an old professor of natural history, 
ladies, for this short excursion into the domains 
of iclithyolog5\ I have wandered from parlor 
gardening ; I hasten back as quickly as I can. 



92 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

There is a crowd of charming plants among 
which you may choose to fill the water of your 
aquarium, such as the hydrocharis, pontederia,* 
and many others. One word only upon those 
most worthy of attention. You are, doubtless, 
acquainted with the sensitive plant, or mimosa 
pudica, the leaflets of which withdraw and con- 
tract when they are touched. There exists an 
aquatic species of this, which you can have float- 
ing upon the parlor aquarium, for it is very 
small. Its leaflets are exactly similar to those of 
the terrestrial sensitive, and possess the same 
retractile properties. 

Manner of grafting Rice. 
If you put at the bottom of your aquarium a 
pot filled with good earth, where you have sowed 
some grains of rice which have not had the husk 
taken off, they will come up ; and you can have 
the pleasure of grafting the plants from these 
seeds upon reeds. For this purpose you must 
cut, by a slanting cut at one of its joints, a rice 

* Frog-bit — a prettj' little British water-plant with white flow- 
ers. — Mrs. Loudon's Ladies'' Companion fur the Flower Garden, 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 93 

straw having its ear half developed ; then, in a 
contrary slant, cut a joint of the phalaris reed, 
Avhich is to be the stock of your graft, and fit one 
to the other, wrapping them with a thread of 
very fine woollen yarn. The whole, for greater 
security, must be attached to a rod for a support. 
You will thus see the rice stalk, nourished by the 
phalaris, ripen its grain as well as that which is 
not grafted. 

There is a little plant, the aquatic ranunculus, 
common in all our streams, which, if you follow 
my advice, you will admit into the society of the 
rarest plants. "What recommends it is its pecu- 
liar mode of vegetation. After springing from 
the seed at the bottom of the basin, the stalk, as 
it progresses in its growth, puts forth, in place of 
leaves, elegant filaments of a fine, pale green ; 
and this continues to be the case until it has be- 
come long enough to reach the surface of the 
water, and come in contact with the air. Then, 
as if transformed suddenly into a different plant, 
its Avhole appearance changes ; no more filaments 
to be seen ; they have become metamorphosed into 
leaves cut in segments, which lie floating upon 



94 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

the tranquil Avater, and amidst which rise the 
floral stalks, bearing little bingle flowers — white, 
with a yellow mark at the base of each petal. 
Common as it is, the aquatic ranunculus maj--, 
with its European physiognomy, hold its place 
very well in the midst of the most beautiful 
aquatic plants of foreign origin.* 

Take notice, I beg you, ladies, that I do not in 



♦ Description of tlie water ranunculus in America by Dr. Dar- 
lington, of West Chester, Pa., in his Flora Cestiica : — 

" Rnmmndus, Linn., (Latin rana, a frog, the plant often growing 
where frogs abound.) 

" Rammciihis aqnataiK, Linn., wat'er ranunculus; Vulgo, river 
crowfoot. 

'• Root perennial. Stems numerous from the root, proeumbently 
floating, nine to eighteen inches long, very slender, smooth, jointed, 
branching, and usually throwing out a couple of filiform roots at 
the joints. Leaves alternate, one at each joint, . . . segments half 
an inch to an inch long. . . . Petals white or ochroleucous, yellow 
at base. . . . 

• Habitat, flowing waters: Brandy wine, frequent. Flowers June 
to August. 

'' Obsprrntion. — I have often found this plant entirely submersed 
(and usually in swift-running water) so deep that the flowers cer- 
tainly never reached the surface. Professor De Ca.idolle enumer- 
ates five varieties of this species, four of which Professor Hooker 
gives as natives of British America; but I have only met with the 
present one in this county, (Chester County, Pa.) " 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 95 

any way pretend that there is no objection to a 
house aquarium ; it costs a good deal, and causes 
derangements — particularly for its first establish- 
ment — which would prevent its being admitted 
every where ; but it incontestably forms a part of 
parlor gardening for all such as can afford the 
expense, and are willing to submit to the incon- 
veniences occasioned by it for the sake of the 
pleasures that it will yield in return. 



PART II. 

THE GARDEN AT THE WINDOW. 

CHAPTER IX. 
THE GAKDEX UPON THE BALCOXY. 

Exposure of the Balconies. — The Balcony to the North. — Irish 
Ivy, Hepaticas, Digitalis (Foxglove), Mimulus (Monkey Flower), 
II\pericuni (St. John's-wort), Nemophila, Violets, Periwinkles. 

— The Balcony to the East. — Cobaa, Spanish Beans, Volubilis. 

— Suspended Flower Vases. — Disposition of the Flowers upon 
the Balcony to the East. —Lilacs, Gillyflowers, Pinks, Pansies, 
Mignionette. — The Balcony to the West. — Sticking Slips of 
Pelargoniums and Chrysanthemums. — Management of the 
Growth of the Slips of Pelargonium. — Of the Slips of Chrysan- 
themums. — Chinese Method. — European Method. — The BaU 
cony to the South. — Sowing Seeds. — Precautions against the 
Sun. 

Exposure of the Balconies. 
fT^IIE TITLE of this Avork imposes on me the 
_L obligation of first saying something to you of 

(96) 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 97 

all that it is possible to do in horticulture without 
leaving your house. I hope I have showed you, 
ladies, that to satisfy your enlightened taste for 
beautiful, ornamental plants, and to occupy a part 
of your leisure time very agreeably, nothing more 
is necessary than gardening in a parlor. But this 
in no way prevents your giving also some of your 
attention to the only out-door garden which is pos- 
sible to the greater portion of the inhabitants of 
large populous cities — the garden at the window. 
Before any thing else, you must consider the 
exposure of your windows ; for the question is no 
longer how to cultivate living plants in the arti- 
ficial atmosphere of an inhabited chamber, or a 
portable greenhouse. The garden plants at the 
window are destined to live in the open air, if, 
indeed, the gaseous fluid of cities, which is alone 
at their disposal, merits the name of air. The 
greater part of the time, however, they do not live 
there : reared in real gardens by real gardeners, 
bought in full flower to shine for some da^^s only, 
they make haste to die in a medium that is not 
really air, and where, consequently, one cannot 
exact of them to live. Your windows are either 
7 



98 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

exposed to the north, to the east, the west, or the 
south ; or their exposure is intermediary between 
these four points. 

The Balcony to the North. 

A balcony with a full northern exposure, par- 
ticularly if it looks out on a street of only moder- 
ate width, and is situated too low down to escape 
from the emanations below, is in a position pre- 
senting the worst conditions as regards horti- 
culture. Does this mean that we need not attempt 
gardening there ? Far from it. It means only 
that the choice of plants with which it is possible 
to adorn our garden is very limited ; for all have 
need, more or less, of contact with the rays of 
the Sim. 

First, you must surround the balustrade and 
the framework of the window with a decoration 
of ivy, which will give 3'ou a perpetual verdure. 
There are several varieties, the best of which is the 
Irish ivy ; its growth more rapid, and its green 
less sombre, than the common sort. If you take 
care to curtail such shoots as grow too long, and 
to pull off such leaves as turn from green to 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 99 

yellow, the Irish ivy -will surround your window 
to the north with a drapery of ever- verdant vegeta- 
tion, which will serve to bring out advantageously 
the few flowers that it is possible to cultivate in 
this exposure. The hepaticas, blue and rose-rcol- 
ored — the lily of the valley — the digitalis, (fox- 
glove,) violet and white — the mimulus, (monkey 
flower,) — the large flowered hypetdcum, (St. John's- 
wort,) — and the charming ne/HO/;7ii7a, — are all 
plants which, as they grow naturally by the side of 
great forests, may consequently do without the sun. 
These, with the violet and the periwinkle for their 
modest companions, will be the principal elements 
of decoration for your garden at the window with 
a northern exposure. 

If, regardless of expense, you be fully deter- 
mined to have on this balcony all the plants of the 
season, then procure and place them there, despite 
of the short duration of flowers in this exposure. 
You will do this knowing beforehand that the 
plants Avill die some time after flowering — an an- 
noying result, which, however, cannot be avoided ; 
it forms part of the cost which must be paid for 
the pleasure of having them there. 



J.OO THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

The Balcony to the East. 

On a balcony to the east — if the street be a 
tolerably wide one, and the balcony belong to a 
story high enough to receive a ration of air, if 
not very pure, at least supportable — gardening 
can be praclised on a grand scale. 

The windoAV may be surrounded -svith climbing 
coboea, instead of ivy. This is a plant of very 
elegant foliage, although its flowers have but lit- 
tle brilliancy. You can give to it for companions 
Spanish beans and volubilis. These tAvo Avould 
not have flowered at all to the north ; nor will 
they flower to the east either, as they Avould do 
to the west or the south. Their flowers, never- 
theless, will, by their lively tints, make an agree- 
able variety of colors in the decoration of your 
window with the eastern exposure. 

Suspended Flower Vases. 

Giving to this decoration the graceful form of 

an arch, by means of a simple hoop nailed to the 

two frames of the window, you must join with 

it the accessory ornament of an earthen- ware vase 




Fig. 8 — Hanging Flower-rase. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 101 

of elegant form, in which to place a common 
flower pot containing ornamental plants ; some 
with straight stalks — such as petunias or red- 
flowered geraniums; others with hanging stems — 
such as Chinese saxifrage, the runners of which, 
like those of tlie strawberry, bloom at each joint 
while floating freely in the air. Similar vases are 
appropriate ornaments for the wmdows of all 
other exposures except the northern. During the 
cold, season they can be taken in, and hung to 
the ceiling like chandeliers ; and it is easy to 
procure such as will perform the office of veri- 
table chandeliers, being set round with sockets 
for holding candles, choice plants — agaves, for 
instance — occupying the centre, whilst hanging 
plants, pouring over, as it were, through the 
spaces between the candles, depend from the rim 
of the vase. 

Disposition of the Flowers on the Balcony to 
the East. 

On the eastern balcony, besides the plants be- 
fore pointed out for the northern exposure, a 
great variety of common plants — which are not 



102 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

the less agi-eeable for being common — may suc- 
ceed each other all the year round. That you 
may not deprive yourself of the use of the bal- 
cony, in case of your liking occasionally to stand 
there, you must take care to place such shrubs 
as roses and Persian lilacs at the two ends ; next 
to them, such herbaceous plants as are somewhat 
tall — gillyflowers or pinks, for instance ; then the 
rest in the middle. The very low ones — pansies, 
auriculas, or mignionette — should be in a shal- 
low zinc vessel, such as is used for flower- stands. 
Thus, when at your window, you feel as if sur- 
rounded by all the perfumery of your toilet ; and 
you will not be deprived of the use of your bal- 
cony, when it pleases you to go out upon it to 
breathe there the best air that the city aff'ords at 
this season — that is, a compound consisting of a 
little air and a great deal of dust. As you would 
not wish to quarrel with your neighbors, nor 
your landlord, nor the police, you must take care 
to keep under the pots and boxes ornamenting 
your balconies vessels of varnished earthen ware, 
sufficiently deep to hold the overflowings of the 
waterings ; you will thereby avoid staining the 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 103 

front of the house, and givmg to passers-by a 
sort of shower bath which may not be to their 
taste. During prolonged droughts the foliage of 
the plants of your garden at the window may 
probably change from green to gray — thanks to 
a thick coat of dust ; in which case, you must, 
at least once a week, have these plants taken, one 
by one, to the sink in your kitchen, and there, by 
means of a watering-pot with a rose pierced with 
very small holes, give them, one after the other, 
a good washing, such as they receive from a 
pretty long shower of rain. 

All the flowers of the season — from the violet 
of March to the chrysanthemum of December — 
may succeed one another on the balcony exposed 
to the east. Perhaps the heliotrope (which re- 
quires a great deal of sun) and the lantanas, and 
some others, may be exceptions ; these will, at 
any rate, do better to the west and south. 

The Balcony to the West. 

On the Mestern exposure you have carte 
blanche ; every ornamental plant may pass the 
warm season there. You can place there, for the 



104 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

whole summer, myrtles, oranges, rose laurels, 
pomegranates, camellias, kalmias, and azaleas, 
^vhich belong in winter to the garden in the 
house. Two sorts of plants, alike agreeable, — • 
the pelargoniums and the Indian chrysanthemums, 
— can be easily propagated there, by slips stuck 
in the way I have already shown you. Nor is 
there any need of a portable greenhouse this 
time : you may stick them simply in pots filled 
with good earth, taking care to place over your 
slips, for the first eight or ten days, a tumbler 
turned upside down, pressing down the edge 
slightly into the earth. After the slips have 
taken, remove the tumblers, and water the young 
plants once or twice a Aveek with a good glass of 
dish-water that you have had put aside for this 
purpose by the cook ; you will see with what 
vigor they put out. I shall take this occasion 
to give you some advice that Mill be useful to 
you, on the manner of training the pelargoniums 
and chrysanthemums that you have propagated 
by slips. 




Figj. 9. — Chandelier Flower-vase. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 105 

Method of training the Pelargonium Slips. 

A slip of pelargonium, left to itself, shoots at 
hazard right and left, puts forth a quantity of 
foliage and flowers badly : this is what the French 
gardeners, adopting a term applied generally to 
colts, call badly broken. When you see it well 
rooted, and beginning to shoot vigorously, pinch 
off the top. The two or three shoots next below 
this will develop in side branches of nearly 
equal strength ; destroy all that put out below 
these, retaining them alone to form a regular 
head. If one of these branches runs up, and 
is impatient to pass the others, do not hesitate to 
pinch it off. Below this point two shoots must 
be left at first — one of them to be taken off at 
the end of eight or ten days. Thus will equality 
in the vegetation of the pelargonium be main- 
tained. These attentions will be a true pleasure 
to you ; you will witness their effect immediately ; 
and the flowering of your pelargoniums thus man- 
aged will be as equal and as perfect as is natural 
to the different species of this beautiful genus. 



106 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

Training Chrysanthemum Slips. 
Chrysanthemums propagated by slips should be 
treated in the same manner, according to the same 
principles. If you belonged, ladies, to the good 
society of Pekin, instead of to that of our Coven- 
try, the following is the way you would treat 
your chrysanthemums : After having planted each 
one of your slips in a deep and slender vase, you 
would direct your care to the development of the 
terminal shoots ; as shoots made their appearance, 
they would be pitilessly destroyed. The chrysan- 
themum thus treated will gain a great deal in 
height, and will end by forming at its summit a 
single tuft of flowers, of which flowers one only 
must be allowed to remain : this one will arrive 
at a most extraordinary degree of development. 
It is thus that the wives of the mandarins culti- 
vate the chrysanthemum — the flower of their 
special predilection. Every j-^ear, in the great 
cities of the Celestial Empire, there are exhibitions 
specially for chrysanthemums, where every body 
sends their flowers, and where prizes are decreed 
for the tallest plants ; not as to the most beauti- 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 107 

ful flowers, but to the most beautiful flower, each 
plant having but one. 

To every country its custom, the proverb says. 
To ourselves, " outside barbarians " as we are, 
the chrysanthemum, cultivated in the Chinese 
fashion, appears, and with reason, completely de- 
void of grace. You will take care, then, by 
means of the same pinching process practised 
upon the pelargoniums, to compel your chrysan- 
themums to form a head consisting of three or 
four branches of equal strength, well furnished 
with flowers, making the plant of such a height 
from the ground as may be suited to the disposa- 
ble place on your balcony, and leaving to each 
branch the number of flowers which it sees fit to 
have. 

The Balcony to the South. 

It is upon the balcony exposed to the south, 
ladies, that you can practise the most varied hor- 
ticulture — a balcony to the south being the bor- 
der of a parterre on a reduced scale. There, in 
pots filled with an equal mixture of earth and 
manure, you may produce, by sowing, all the 
annual ornamental plants — pansies, Queen Mar- 



108 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

garets (China-asters), balsams, tagetis (French 
and African marigolds), petunias, and coreopsis; 
and to these sowings you will be indebted for this 
part of the decoration of all your balconies and 
of your flower- stand. For, upon a balcony with 
a southern exposure, may be made to grow, from 
the seed, plants, not only for yourself, but for all 
your friends and acquaintances besides. 

Precautions against the Sun. 

But the success of this part of your gardening 
depends on one precaution, for the want of which 
all would fail. The ardent sun of the summer 
must never strike directly on the outside of your 
pots. 

In their natural situation, the roots of plants, 
plunged into the soil, receive only a heat tem- 
pered by the coolness imparted to them by the 
soil beneath. In pots, on the contrary, the ex- 
tremities of these roots, which line the inside of 
the pot, and which are the most tender part of 
them, are literally burnt when the sun shines on 
its external surface. You must not think that 
repeated waterings will remedy this : if you water 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 109 

the plants often, the roots in pots exposed to the 
sun, being then in contact with hot water, will be 
boiled instead of being roasted, which will come 
exactly to the same thing, so far as their life is 
concerned. It is then indispensable to have a 
plank, inside of the balustrade of your balcony 
facing the south, which plank, its edge touching 
the floor, must reach as high as the top of the 
largest pots. The outside of the pots being 
shaded by this plank, the roots of the plants will 
experience only a moderate degree of heat ; for 
any excess of this may then be prevented by fre- 
quent waterings. So says our author with 
reference to the climate of Europe. In ours, 
however, plants in pots require an additional 
protection from the sun — the shade of a tree, or 
an awning, or something of the sort. 



110 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 



CHAPTER X. 
THE GARDEN UPON THE LARGE BALCONY. 

The Terrace Balcony. — Boxes to furnish it. — Running Shrubs; 
Glycine (Wisteria), Virginia Creeper, Buddleya, Clianthus 
(Crimson-glory Pea). — Assorted Plants. — Seedling Ranunculus. 

— Manner of assorting the Shades. — Use made of the Plants 
propagated in the Portable Greenhouse: Pinks, Hyacinths, 
Tulips, Crocuses, Pelargoniums, Chrysanthemums, Fuchsias, 
Lantanas, Heliotropes, Mignionette. — Utility of this last. — Win- 
ter Dress of the Terrace Balcony.— Galanthus (Snowdrop). 

— Japan Quince. — Hellebore. — Christmas Rose. — Variegated 
Holly. 

HAPPY the person, who, in the interior of 
any large city, possesses a large balcony, 
with an exposure ever so little to the south. It 
is almost equal to the possession of a garden. 

The Terrace Balcony. 

We may consider as garden terraces those long 
and wide balconies, extending, if not all along 
the front of the house, at least for a sufficient dis- 
tance to admit of our gardening there in a far less 




Fig. 10. — The Balcony Garden. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. Ill 

confined space than in the mere veranda of a 
window. Access to such balconies being had 
through windows reaching down to the floor, be- 
fore each window an interval should be reserved, 
to allow you to approach the balustrade and lean 
on your elbows whilst looking out. Should it 
be your good fortune to occupy a lodging ren- 
dered at once healthy and agreeable by such an 
appendage as a spacious balcony with a good 
exposure, the side spaces, intermediate to those 
kept open in front of the windows, may be sup- 
plied with wooden boxes, longer than they are 
wide, painted green, and filled with good garden 
earth, mixed with manure. You have but to 
consider these boxes as the borders of a parterre, 
and proceed to garden there accordingly, as you 
would on the ground. 

Plants for the Balcony Garden. — Wiste- 
ria and Virginia Creeper. 

At each end of the balcony a box, — its length 
equal to the width of the balcony, — which two 
boxes have a special destination : it is there that 
you must plant a glycine of China — (Wisteria), 



112 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

and a bignonia, or Virginia creeper (trumpet 
flower), — the running stems of which are to be 
trained parallel to each other along the balustrade. 
Thus, without encumbering the balcony, you will 
have, in the spring, the beautiful bunches of 
amethyst flowers of the Wisteria, hanging grace- 
fully outside, and shedding an odor the most 
delicately sweet of almost any of the whole vege- 
table kingdom ; and in autumn the flowers of 
the Virginia creeper, in bunches of a rich red, 
will renew the decoration. During the inter- 
mediate heats, the abundant foliage of these two 
plants will very advantageously protect the boxes 
of ornamental plants from the burning contact of 
the solar rays. You need not contrive any other 
shelter for them. 

Buddleya and Cliantlius. 

To procure still more shade, add to the above 
a robust plant of buddleya on one side, and a red 
flowered clianthus on the other. 

The buddleya, attached to a solid stick, upAvards 
of a yard and a half high, and left to itself from 
this height, will fall in all directions, with as much 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 113 

grace as do the flexible branches of the weeping 
willow. At each extremity of slender and supple 
branches will open a long bunch of flowers, of 
a fine violet color. Should it so happen that 
some of these flowered branches, in the exuber- 
ance of their spirits, stray off so far as to pay a 
visit to your next door neighbors, these, especially 
whilst taking the air at their windows, will have 
no cause to complain of the intrusion. 

The clianthus — to which you must give, as a 
support, four rods of white osier tied together — 
will very scon hide this support under its abun- 
dant vegetation, adorned with a profusion of 
flowers of the finest carnation color. 

If these two shrubs occupied the middle of the 
balcony, they would take up too much room, and 
prevent your seeing out ; but, placed at the two 
angles, they give a little shade, fresh and per- 
fumed, which contributes to render more delight- 
ful still those moments of the day that one likes 
to pass, book in hand, upon the balcony in the 
midst of flowers. 

8 



114 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

Other Plants. 
The various ornamental plants of each sea- 
son — the principal of which I have indicated 
to you as being suitable for making a show in 
the garden at the window, at the different expo- 
sures — can, of course, be made use of in decorat- 
ing a balcony large enough to serve the purpose 
of a terrace. 

Seedling Ranunculuses. 
If, as I advised, you have amused yourself in 
rearing in the cold portable greenhouse of your 
parlor a supply of young roots of the ranun- 
culus, obtained from seeds, you will, after having 
used such of these little roots as were requisite 
for the ornamenting of your flower- stand, have 
a considerable number of them left. In the 
spring, when you have no longer cause to dread 
the appearance of any more last lingering colds, 
plant this residue of those little roots in one of 
the boxes on your balcony. They will give you, 
for a month's time, a profusion of flowers of 
varied shades, some deep and lively, the others 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 115 

pale and delicate. The first year, these shades 
will necessarily be mingled together at hazard. 
When you come to pull up the roots, after the 
bloom, you must observe the color of the flowers 
of each plant, and write these colors in a list, 
with a number affixed to each color. Prepare 
papers, in which to wrap the roots, by marking 
each paper with one of the numbers on your list ; 
and when you wrap up the roots, for putting by 
till the following spring, place all of the same 
color and shade together in one paper, bearing 
the proper number. By this means, when they 
are to be planted the second year, you will be 
enabled to arrange the deep and light colors artis- 
tically. The deep colors are always the least 
numerous. 

Observe, I beg of you, ladies, that if you take 
care of your ranunculuses when in bloom, water- 
ing them at the proper times, and do not allow 
them to be Avasted in bouquets by indiscreet vis- 
itors, the finest among them will give you a good 
supply of fertile seed. The plants that you will 
obtain by sowing these seeds will not reproduce 
exactly the colors of the parent flowers ; but, by 



116 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

sowing those seeds only M'hich come from the 
choicest flowers, you Avill be sure to have a 
beautiful mixture, presenting the finest shades 
in proper proportions. 

Plants propagated in the Portable Greenhouse. 
The boxes of the great balcony — I suppose 
them to be large enough — will naturally be the 
receptacle for the plants reared in your portable 
greenhouse ; and among these will be your seed- 
ling pinks, that will all find an appropriate place 
there. A group of variegated tulips ; another of 
hyacinths, blue, rose, and pale yellow ; elegant 
borders of crocuses, which you have taken care 
to alternate, white, violet, and golden yellow ; — 
these will enamel yoiir parterre from the very set- 
ting in of spring. Do not be afraid to multiply 
by slips your pelargoniums, chrysanthemums, 
fuchsias, iantanas, and heliotropes, in order that 
your boxes may be kept constant!}' filled "with 
plants in flower. You will never have too many, 
if you be sedulous not to leave empty places in 
them. With this view, be always careful to sow 
seeds in the place of the plants you have trans- 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 117 

planted. You will be surprised to see how very- 
large a qxiantity of plants a space apparently so 
small can hold, if you do what is requisite to 
make each one of your boxes present constantly, 
from spring to autumn, a full bouquet, rich in 
its variety of colors and of perfumes. As re- 
gards perfume, sow mignionette every where. It 
thrives in the shade of the other plants, takes up 
but little room, and keeps out of sight, its per- 
fume only disclosing its presence ; and provided 
that you take care not to let it exhaust itself in 
producing too many seeds, — the production of 
seeds being the business of your garden, — it will 
continue to bloom until the end of October, hold- 
ing on till after the first serious freeze. The pre- 
vious white frosts will then have already killed 
first the balsams and the Queen ^largarets, then 
the tagetes and the ageratums of Mexico, after- 
wards the petunias ; the chrysanthemums alone 
■will remain. Then it is that you will congratu- 
late yourself for having sowed a great deal of 
mignioiiette. So long as it continues to bloom 
it will contribute largely — now in a far larger 
proportion than before — to the pleasantness of 



118 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

the visits you will continue to pay, in November, 
to your balcony garden, on the few fine days 
which the departing year may yet have in store 
for you. 

The "Winter Dress of the Balcony Garden. 

AVinter is decidedly come. Your faithful little 
mignionette, yielding at length to Mhat the jurists 
call force majeure, has abandoned you, and dis- 
appeared from your boxes ; your chrysanthe- 
mums have taken shelter within doors, that they 
may there continue to present you with flowers. 
Now, then, as they can no longer wear their 
summer garments, give to the bord?rs of your 
balcony parterre their winter dress, which, though 
much less variegated, is far from being without 
charms. Plant there those beautiful tufts of the 
galanthus, its white flowers bordered with green. 
Its common name, snowdrop, may perhaps be 
more familiar to your ears ; and this name its 
robust temperament fully justifies, for it is en- 
dowed with a most hardy constitution — one that 
enables it to bloom bravely between two freez- 
ings, so that when a pale ray of sunshine comes 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 119 

to melt a thick layer of snow, one is a^jreeably 
surprised to tind the snowdrop in full flower. 

One or two little bushes of Japan quince, 
some plants of the Christmas rose, two or three 
hollies, with their variegated leaves, green and 
white, among which the fruit shines like coral 
beads, — these will clothe your great balcony with 
attractions that may tempt you out there to in- 
hale the wintry air, except on the worst days of 
this worst of the seasons. You will have re- 
ceived there from Autumn the last of her flowers 
as a souvenir of past joys. You will now obtain 
there, from her grim successor, a present, accept- 
able in itself, and yet more so as a harbinger of 
the coming spring. 

And thus, ladies, the refined and refining pleas- 
ures which the practice of gardening aff"ords will 
have been enjoyed by you, in all their variety, 
without your leaving the house. 



120 THE PARLOR GARDENER, 



CHAPTER XI. 
THE GARDEN UPON THE TERRACE. 

The Terrace Garden. — How it takes the Place of a Garden. — Ter- 
race exposed to the North. — Its TreUised Roof. — Irish Ivj' to 
cover it. — Shrubs to till the Boxes. — Variegated Holly, Alater- 
nus (Buckthorn), Rhododendrons, Great Periwinkle. — Terraces 
of a good Exposure. — Running Plants: Honeysuckle, Clem- 
atis, Boursault Rose, Bougainville, Chinese Glycine, Virginia 
Creeper, Buddleya, Clianthus, Delphinium, Hibiscus. - Summer 
Pruning of the Persian Lilac. — Watering. 

The Terrace Garden. 

ryiERRACES on the roofs of houses are not 
X common with us. I shall, however, not 
omit what our author says about gardening on 
terraces ; for, besides that it is very interesting, 
the flat roofs of extensions and back buildings 
answer every purpose so far as gardening is con- 
cerned. 

Terraces, like the windows of your house, may 
be exposed to the north, the east, the west, or 
the south. You already know that, for garden- 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 121 

ing purposes, the two last exposures are the most 
favorable ; particularly if your terrace has open 
space enough before it to permit the air and the 
sun to reach it without much obstruction. 

Terrace exposed to the Worth. 

Let us take the worst hypothesis first : your 
terrace is fully to the north ; in all other direc- 
tions it is hemmed in by lofty buildings, so that 
the sun has the right to visit it the 35th of every 
month, and then only. You have, however, done 
very well, ladies, to have a terrace constructed, 
even under these unfavorable conditions. At its 
centre have a wooden column erected, which is 
to sustain a trellised roof consisting of four tri- 
angidar parts. The Irish ivy will quickly over- 
run this, covering it Avith its thick verdure. A 
round table, through the centre of which the 
column passes, will be a convenience for placing 
your books and work upon, also for taking 
breakfast and tea there, when, oppressed w-ithin 
doors by the heats of summer, you take refuge 
in the open air, under the shelter afforded by that 
dense foliage. One side of the terrace being 



122 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

closed by the wall of the house of which it is an 
appendage, in which wall are the doors and win- 
dows opening upon it, erect, at each of the other 
sides, two arches, from the centres of which vases 
are to be suspended. 

Shrubs blooming in the Shade. 
Just within the balustrade, or the parapet (if it 
be a parapet) of your terrace, we must have a 
range of boxes similar to those on the great bal- 
cony, which, by our joint endeavors, we have 
been getting all the good out of that we could. 
This terrace garden of yours being a northern 
one, its boxes must be filled with heath soil ; and 
we must rear there shrubs with persistent leaves 
— variegated hollies, alaterni, rhododendrons. 
These are among the shrubs which tolerate the 
shade, and whose robust temperament does not 
fear the cold, and, with the great perivvinkle for 
their associate, they will constitute the basis of 
the decoration of your garden. Add to them 
whatever ornamental plants I have previously 
made known to you, as being able to bloom 
passably well without the help of the sun. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER- 123 

When the heat of the dog claj's renders coolness 
precious, your friends will be glad to come and 
partake with you of that which your ivy-clad 
arbor affords : for three months its freshness will 
be a source of delightful feelings for them as well 
as for yourself. Do you say this is no great 
thing ? Agreed. But, on your side, you Avill 
have to admit that it is a great deal better than 
nothing at all, and that, as a general rule, it is 
wise not to ask of any thing more than it can 
give you — a rule which, applying as it does to 
your terrace with a north exposure, as to all other 
things, must be its protection against ^.unwise 
exactions. 

Terraces of a good Exposure. 
What we have effected, in the way of garden- 
ing, upon your balconies to the east, west, and 
south, you have only to repeat on a larger scale, 
if your terrace garden has one of these exposures. 
Here, however, is the place for some advice re- 
specting certain plants, of medium and large size, 
that we have not been able to cultivate before, 
for want of room. 



124 THE PA II LOR GARDENER. 

Running and Climbing Plants. 

That trellis roof, when it has the good fortune 
to be removed to a terrace with a good exposure, 
admits of being clad in a garment composed of 
the most agreeable mixture of climbing and run- 
ning plants, in place of the Irish ivy, which, in 
the northern exposure, was its only covering. 
Do not be afraid, ladies, to vary and multiply these 
plants ; they will agree very well with each 
other ; each one Avill take its just share of air and 
of sun ; each will bloom in its own proper time ; 
vying with each other, in the most amicable 
spirit possible, in their jomt task of weaving over 
your head the most charming canopy that can be 
conceived. 

At the corners of your terrace plant honey- 
suckles, clematis, Boursault roses, and Bougain- 
ville, to which you may add the glycine of 
China, and the Virginia creeper. Whilst climb- 
ing up the pillars that sustain the arches of 
the trellis, the buddleya and the clianthus will 
feel entirely at home; nor will they be incom- 
moded by the company of a tall hollyhock 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 125 

and a fine Ajax delphinium, attended by two 
or three hibiscuses.* 

The room which all these will possess them- 
selves of, on the balustrade of the terrace, will 
still leave enough there for yourself when you 
wish to le^n on it, and look down upon whatever 
there may be worth seeing below. 

Summer Pruning of the Persian Ijilac. 

On terraces having a western or a southern ex- 
posure, besides the boxes serving as the border 
beds of your garden, there may be others, of a 
medium size, for receiving oranges, myrtles, pome- 
granates, rose laurels, and even a few fine Per- 
sian lilacs. 

When the elegant »pring bloom of these last is 
over, do not omit to subject them to the summer 
pruning. This is a happy innovation, introduced 
into our horticulture but a few years ago, and 
already generally adopted. The process is as 
follows : — 

When the flowers of the Persian lilac have 
faded, we do not, as formerly, content ourselves 

* The althsea is an hibiscus. 



126 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

with merely cutting off the bunches from which 
the flowers have fallen ; we cut off the tops of 
every branch of the plant, and, moreover, every 
thing that is green upon it, the lilac thereby find- 
ing itself stripped entirely — no less perfectly 
naked than at Christmas. But very soon the in- 
herent energy with which the Persian lilac is 
endued manifests itself in a most vigorous vege- 
tation : young shoots, all of equal length, all 
equally floriferous for the next year, replace the 
pruned-off branches; and you have a plant the 
very best of its kind. A necessary precaution, 
with respect to lilacs and other shrubs cul- 
tivated in separate boxes, is, to turn the box 
partly round twice a week, so that each side of 
the plant may receive by turns its just share of 
air and of light. Otherwise the natural j^ropen- 
sity of plants to grow most vigorously on the 
best lighted side will cause them to shoot out 
mostly on one side, whereby the symmetry of 
their heads would be entirely spoiled, and in the 
course of a single summer they would be alto- 
gether deprived of grace. When the boxes are 
turned often enough, the annual growth cannot 
get a wrong set. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 127 

■Watering. 

"When your terrace has a southern exposure, the 
earth contanied m the boxes formmg the border 
requires watering two or three times a day ; the heat 
reflected from the floor of the terrace, especially 
when of metal, causing a far more rapid evapora- 
tion than would take place in the borders of a 
parterre having a similar exposure. These water- 
ings, the sowing of seeds, sticking slips, trans- 
planting, removing day by day the faded flowers, 
and gathering of seeds for next year, will be just so 
much healthful exercise for you in the open air of 
your terrace garden. 

These attentions and this work — of which you 
must be careful to do no more than you can do 
Avithout over-fatigue, without occasioning feelings 
of exhaustion — will imbue you with a taste for 
ornamental plants ; which, becoming more and 
more lively as you proceed, will finally expand 
into a real love, such as that with which we 
love living beings reared by our care. With your 
sex it is matter of instinct to love all that is gen- 
tle, tender, elegant, and graceful. 



128 THE PAR LOU GARDEXER. 

Do not imagine, ladies, that the above is all that 
the garden on the terrace can yield for you in the 
shape of pleasure arising from the practice of hor- 
ticulture ; there is, besides, quite a different series 
of facts, AAhich you will appreciate if you will tuke 
the pains to read the folloAving chapter. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 129 



CHAPTER XII. 
FRUITS UPON THE TERRACE. 

Fruits that ve can have on the Terrace. — Alpine Strawberry.— 
Buisson de Gaillon. — Virginia Scarlet Strawberry. — Strawberry 
of Chili. - Superb Wilmot. — Goliah. — Blcton White. — Queen 
of Great Britain.— The Vine. — Pruning. — Thinning out the 
Grapes. — Thinning out the Leaves. — Cherry Trees. —Plum 
Trees. — Currants.— Raspberries. —Forced Fruit on Dwarfs.— 
Cutting the Dwarf Fruit Trees on the Terrace. — Management 
of Cherry Trees, Plum Trees, Strawberries, Raspberries. — Form 
that suits the Raspberry in a Pot on the Terrace. 

Fruits that it is practicable to have on a 
Terrace. 



w 



HO IS not a little, of an epicure ? Epicu- 
rism and idleness — the love of those pas- 
times often called idle — are the least of the seven 
mortal sins ; as to the others I will say nothing, 
being averse to dealing in scandal. A little glut- 
tony as regards fruits is so natural ! As to myself, 
I cannot honestly deny, and therefore frankly 
confess, that I sympathize with our mother Eve. 
9 



130 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

The fruits, however, of which I am about to 
speak, have the merit of not being forbidden ; 
they are, on the contrarj", among the most ad- 
missible of things. 

Now, you are going to ask me if I pretend to 
make you engage in planting fruit trees on your 
terrace, such as there — perhaps — were in those 
famous "Hanging Gardens" of Queen Semira- 
mis ; which gardens, by the by, — supposing them 
to have ever existed, — were nothing more nor 
less than terrace gardens, such as your own ; 
only, in a degree, — never mind what precise de- 
gree, — more spacious. I have no such grand 
enterprise to propose to you, ladies ; no scheme 
of the sort is in my mind. I desire merely to call 
your attention to a small number of excellent 
fruits, of which you can easily have a harvest, — I 
do not promise that it shall be large enough to 
load a ship, — iipon your terrace. 

In the first place, then, an assumption on my 
part. I assume that your terrace is sufficiently 
spacious to admit of your border boxes being large 
enough to afford room for the worship of Pomona, 
as well as for that already appropriated to Flora ; 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 131 

and this without the least encroachment upon the 
rights of the lady last named. This pretty little 
figure of speech — a perfect statuette, is it not ? — 
is not original with me : I beg you to understand, 
ladies, that I lay no claim to its authorship ; it 
belongs to the late Rousselon, and first appeared 
in his Annals of Flora and Pomona. 

Now, — to descend from the airy heights of 
fancy, and engage in our work upon material 
realities, — you will find that a few strawberry 
plants will not be at all in the way of your orna- 
mental ones. And this being the case, will it not 
be pleasant to you, while engaged in your horti- 
cultural labors, to find, now and then, under your 
hand, a fine, ripe strawberry or two r And these 
of your own production ! 

Strawberries. 

If you open. the catalogue of a horticulturist by 
profession, you will be frightened at the innumer- 
able varieties of the strawberry; each variety 
asserted by the venders to be perfect ; whilst, in 
point of fact, the fruit produced by the greater 
part of them will prove to be either flavorless or 



132 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

sour ; or — in fine, with some defect or other, 
rendering it not worth cultivating-. I — who am 
very cautious on this score, and who, as the result 
of long experience, generally eschew all such — 
can safely recommend to you, as among the most 
desirable, the old-fashioned alpine, which is a 
monthly bearer, the Virginia scarlet, the Chili, 
and those English varieties called, respectively, 
AVilmot superb, Goliah, Bicton white, and queen 
of Great Britain. This last is noted for its ex- 
traordinary fecundity. It is of the strawberry — 
mind you — that I state this. You will recol- 
lect that plants — plants exclusively — constitute 
the subject of our present discourse ; and you 
must not let your thoughts stray off into other 
fields. 

By adopting these varieties, and planting here 
and there among your flowers a couple of plants 
of each of the eight * above named, you will 
have in all sixteen ; each one of which will give 
you on an average six fruits. This will be 
ninety-six strawberries — in round numbers, a 

* The eighth, being peculiarly a French strawberry, has been 
omitted. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 133 

hundred — that you will enjoy the flavor of, one 
by one, as they successively ripen, and as the cli- 
max to the pleasure you will have been experi- 
encing all the while in watching their growth and 
ripening. As respects the latter point, great self- 
control on your part is indispensable. I warn 
you of this beforehand ; for if, through impa- 
tience, you gather them too soon, even so much 
as a single day too soon, you will lose by it, I 
assure you. Their flavor cannot do justice to its 
own merits at any point short of the most perfect 
maturity. Your strawberry plants will require 
no other attention than that of taking off" the run- 
ners by which they propagate themselves. As to 
water, they will take care of themselves, drinking 
their fill from the supplies placed within their 
reach in watering the other plants. You must 
remember to renew them every two years, by 
means of runners that you will reserve for the 
purpose. 

Grape Vine. 

Of all your fruit-bearers, the one that will 
yield the most bounteously is the grape. For 
some years jjast the vine has been a good deal 



134 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

cultivated in pots, in order that it may be forced \ 
that is, be compelled to produce fruit long before 
the time when it will be produced in the open air. 
liYns forcing consists simply in cultivating the vine 
in a hothouse, or tempered greenhouse. Buy 
vines, if you can, all trimmed and ready for bear- 
ing, and place the pots containing them at the 
foot of the posts supporting the arches of your 
terrace arbor. They will there find a suitable 
support in the situation the most favorable to the 
ripening of the fruit. Train them so as to make 
them grow in festoons. In due time grapes will 
be there, within reach of your hand, hanging in 
golden bunches, all the way from the base of the 
pillars up to where the vases are suspended at 
the centre of the arches. 
Will not this be charming ? 

Trimming and Thinning. 
Two things are indispensable to make your 
grapes as good as they ought to be — to cut off 
the top of the vine, which must be done as soon 
as its young grapes are formed, and as large as a 
pea, and to thin out the grapes when too thick in 
the bunch. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 135 

This last operation is as follows : When the 
vine grows in good earth, in a good exposure, 
and has been skilfully pruned, and when too 
much fruit — too many bunches — has not been 
left upon it, each blossom will produce its fruit. 
As they expand the young grapes crowd each 
other ; they get squeezed together, and pressed 
out of shape ; the air and light can get only to 
those on the outside of the bunch. The conse- 
quence is, that the bunch has not half the value 
at market that it would have, had the matter been 
differently managed. Do you know, ladies, what, 
in order to avoid this misfortune, is done by the 
wives and daughters of the gardeners of Tho- 
mery ? Thomery is a little village where those 
unrivalled grapes are produced, which are sold at 
Paris under the name of " grapes of Fontaine- 
bleau." These women, each armed with a pair of 
pointed scissors, patiently cut out, from each of 
those little bunches of which every distinct bunch 
is composed, one young grape in every three. 
And this is the way I now advise you to treat all 
bunches produced by the vines on your terrace. 

You will, I acknowledge, have but four vines 



136 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

growing in so many pots, and you may perhaps 
fancy that the produce, however good in quality, 
must needs be insignificant in quantity. Let us, 
then, make a little calculation. Arithmetic, you 
see, will thrust itself into all human affairs, horti- 
culture not excepted. Well, then, each one of 
your four distinct vines will have four main 
branches, (that are cut down short, say to about 
six inches in length ;) from each one of these 
branches there will be two running vines, and 
each one of these running vines will bear two 
bunches of grapes. If all turns out well, as you 
have reason to hope, you will then have to gather 
in September or October — how many bunches ? 
Why, if arithmetic be a reliable prophet, you will 
have no less than sixty-four bunches of grapes. 
Is not this number large enough to warrant your 
inviting, if not all your acquaintances, yet at 
least the whole circle of your most intimate 
friends, to aid you in the joyous labors of your 

vintage ? 

Thinning out the Leaves. 

About a month before vintage time you will 
have to perform upon your vines a chirurgical 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 137 

operation which requires considerable judgment 
in the execution. By the French it is called 
^pamprer, which signifies to unleaf; consisting, 
as it does, in taking oiF such leaves as prevent 
the sun from striking directly on the grapes, 
which solar action is indispensable to tlieir being 
gilded with their proper rich yellowish hue, and 
to their possessing that richness of flavor of which 
this hue is the only guarantee. If the bestowing 
of all these attentions upon your vines be not an 
amusement for you, then, — permit me to say it, 
— you do not deserve to enjoy the eating of a 
good bunch of chasselas.* 

Cherry Trees, Plum Trees, Currant Bushes, 
Raspberries. 

Are strawberries and grapes all the fruits that 
you can have on your terrace ? No, certainly. 
There are beautiful dwarf trees, about the cul- 
ture of which I am going to give you some 
hints, which, if you profit by them, will enable 
you to have, in addition, cherries and Mirabelle 
plums ; and your variety of terrace garden fruits 

* It would be well to try this method with otlier grapes. 



138 THE PARLOR GARDENER, 

may be further increased by adding to these 
dwarf trees a couple of currant bushes, — a 
white and a red, — and three or four raspberry 
plants. The dwarf cherries and plums, culti- 
vated in large pots or in boxes, like the pome- 
granates and Persian lilacs, will bloom perfectly 
on the terrace. You can purchase them all pre- 
pared. They will " load heavily," as the French 
gardeners yay, and it will be a lively satisfaction 
to you to gather their ripe fruits, some time before 
the usual time of their ripening ; for, placed on 
the terrace, they are in the best of situations for 
enabling them to work energetically, and force 
their fruits forward to early maturity. 

Forced Dwarf Fruit Trees. 
Is it your desire to have ripe cherries and 
plums to eat so early as April or May ? — a 
time when, if you have to buy these fruits, you 
must pay very extravagant prices for them. 
If this be your wish, it is very easily gratified. 
About a fortnight after their leaves have fallen, 
in autumn, remove your dwarf fruit trees (which 
I suppose to be in pots) from the terrace into the 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 139 

house. They will soon begin again to vegetate, 
and by January or February they will be in 
bloom, Avhich, of itself, will be very agreeable 
to you ; and they will ripen their fruits a month 
or two before those in the open air. To enable 
them to do this, the only assistance they require 
from you is to be placed near the windows, and 
to be turned every day, so that each side may 
receive its share of light, and to have the air 
they breathe kept up at a constant tempera- 
ture of from sixty-two to sixty-three degrees of 
Fahrenheit's thermometer. This Avill be about 
the temperature of your room ; the one at which 
it would be kept as being the most pleasant to 
yourself, and the best for your health, as well 
as comfort ; so that you will not be put to any 
additional expense, nor have to derange your 
habits in any way for the sake of these dwarf 
fruit-bearing pets of yours. 

You see now that fruits, no less than flow- 
ers, have their part to play on your terrace, 
although the principal part appertains to the 
flowers. "When you receive your friends, will 
it not be very pleasant to have cherries, and cur- 



140 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

rants, and raspberries to offer them, at a season 
when they are great rarities in the market, and 
to be had there only at prices which the Croesuses 
of the stock exchange can alone afford to pay ? 
Will not your guests be delighted to assist you 
in gathering these nice fruits from the tree with 
their own hands r And, when placed upon your 
table, as its central ornament, will they not look 
far more beautiful than if they had been bought 
with money ? 

Pruning Fruit Trees on the Terrace. 

Don't trouble yourselves about pruning your 
dwarf cherries and plums. The gardeners have 
a saying, that these trees — whose M'ood always 
contains a great deal of gum — do not "love the 
knife ; " they ought, therefore, to have it applied 
to them as seldom as possible. As seldom as 
possible is still too often ; in a Avord, so far as 
they are concerned, keep your pruning-knife in 
your little gardener's tool-chest ; they will thrive 
all the better for its being left there — be all the 
more productive. 

The raspberries, which are simple shrubs, have 



THE PAHLOR GARDENER. 141 

their own way of vegetating; they are peremiial 
in their roots only. The annual stalk, after 
having borne its fruit, dies in autumn ; and it 
ought then to be cut down level with the earth 
in the pots. The root puts forth e^'ery year, in 
great superfluity, young shoots which are des- 
tined to bear fruit the following year ; and, of 
these shoots, but three only must be allowed to 
remain on each plant — that is to say, if you 
wish to have a good crop of really fine rasp- 
berries. In the spring, cut off about a quarter 
from the length of these reserved shoots ; the 
buds at the middle of the stallv will now develop 
better than if it had been left entire ; and it is 
from these buds always that the finest of the 
fruit comes. 

Currants require only to be freed from the old 
wood — that is to say, the exhausted branches, 
which will no longer bloom, and which, with 
their tops supported on a single stalk, encumber 
the inside of the bush. By their being trimmed 
in this manner, the fruit will come out at a good 
height, far enough from the earth not to be soiled 
by the spattering of earthy particles during heavy 



142 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

showers and waterings ; this, therefore, is the 
best way of trimming currants on the terrace. 

Now, ladies, I hope you wiU i^ree that the 
culture of fruits on your terviKiP, if you keep 
them in their proper place, h{>s it? m«rit as well 
as that of the flowers. 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 143 



CHAPTER XIII. 
THE DOUBLE WINDOW. 

Advantages of a Double Window. — Their Use in the North. — The 
Manner of decorating them. — Glass Stands. —Plants proper for 
the Double Window. — Grevillea, Kennedia, Blue Lobelia, Ges- 
neria, Gloxinias, Achimenes, Brunfelsias, Torrenia Asiatics, 
Ixora, Echmea, Begonias. — Sparniauuia. — Retractility of its 
Stamens. 

Advantages of a Double "Window. 

AFTER having done our gardening in the par- 
lor, wishing for a little more room in which 
to pursue it still further, we came out of doors. 
Here also our work is completed. Let us then 
go in again. 

In all countries where Winter brings in his 
train a long succession of vigorous colds, in 
order to guard the better against these, the in- 
habitants, instead of having in their windows bvit 
a single sash, use the wise precaution of having 
two — the outer one even with the outside of the 



144 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

house, the inner one even with the inside wall of 
the apartment. Thanks to this arrangement, the 
cold reigning without is so far excluded that a 
mild temperature is preserved in your chamber, 
Avhile, at the same time, there remains between 
the two sashes a vacant space which is at your 
disposal for any uses to which it is susceptible 
of being put. It is the very thing for our garden- 
ing purposes. 

The English like to keep avadevats there; by 
the Dutch, this space is dedicated to canary 
birds, which they understand perfectly how to 
rear, Holland being the countrj' of all others 
where these birds do most abound. There is 
nothing, how-ever, ladies, to prevent you from 
appropriating it to your favorite pets — flowers. 

It is evident that whenever the interior sash is 
kept open, the interval between the two sashes 
receiving, as it then does, a portion of the atmos- 
phere of the chamber, will of course be of the 
same temperature. This space, then, is equiv- 
alent to a little conservatory, either merely tem- 
pered or hot, according as the person who occu- 
pies the chamber is more or less chilly ; and in 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 145 

this temperature all the cultures that can be con- 
ducted on a large scale in greenhouses, tempered 
merely, or hot, are equally possible on a small 
scale in the double window. 

Manner of decorating it. 
Before filling it with flowers, you must suspend 
there an elegant earthen- ware vase in which to put 
a plant from the order bi omeliacese * — a Guz- 
mannia, for instance, the leaves of which plant 
resemble those of the ananas ; and in the centre 
of this foliage there appears a flower of so bril-» 
liant a red that one cannot steadfastly gaze at it 
without its fatiguing the sight. The size of this 
vase must be proportioned to the width of the 
window, and to the dimensions of the plants that 
you propose to cultivate there. It is best that the 
small pots which you have at the two sides be 
supported on shelves formed of panes of glass, 
because Avooden stands would intercept the light 

* Order Bromeliacese (the pineapple family) consists of American, 
and chiefly tropical plants; with rigid and dry channelled leaves, 
often with a scurfy surface; a mostly adnate perianth of three se- 
pals and three petals, and six or more stamens; the seeds with mealy 
albumen. — Gray's Botanical Text Book. 

10 



146 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

too much. I think you would do well to follow, 
in arranging the plants in the double window, the 
advice I gave with regard to those in the garden 
at the window. 

Plants proper to be placed here. 

Place on the shelves of the glass stands at the 
two ends of the Avindow-sill plants of a low and 
tufted nature : first, on the upper shelves, such 
as, without being precisely climbing or running 
plants, are taller than they are broad. There is 
nothing of this sort more graceful than the shrubs 
of the genus Grevillea. On the front or lower 
shelves place small plants which bear many flow- 
ers, such as the Kennedias and the blue lobelias 
of Surinam. Arranged in this manner, they will 
not be in your way when you wish to stand close 
to the outer sash to look out at the wintry scene, 
as a contrast to your tropical garden within. 
Your double window is an excellent place also 
for making a display of the plants you have ob- 
tained from seeds and slips reared in the hot 
portable greenhouse. Your choice is not a lim- 
ited one by any means. In the course of my 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 147 

instructions, I name only some of those which I 
consider as most worthy of your attention. What 
I shall say in regard to their culture will be a suf- 
ficient guide to you, should you desire to admit 
into their society others that require the same 
temperature. 

Gesneriacea9. 

The double window can also lodge, very much 
at their ease, plants of the order Gesneriacece,* of 
the three genera, Gesneria, Gloxinia, and Achimenes. 
I have already had occasion to remark with what 
perfect docility a leaf, or a mere fragment of a 
leaf, from a plant of this last named genus will 
take root when we wish to propagate it by 
slips. 

The gloxinias are not less accommodating : 
their foliage resembles the most beautiful green 
velvety and their flowers, in the form of a goblet, 
have in the inside a large spot, which is always of 
a different shade from the flower itself. The ges- 
neriacea? require a great deal of water and of 
heat ; they must be watered several times a day, 

* Order Gesneriacea?, consisting of tropical herbs, witli green 
foliage and showy flowers. — Gray's Botanical Text Book. 



148 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

and whenever you have reason to fear that they 
may be seriously injured by the cold at night, — 
which would happen only when it freezes very 
hard outside, — you will take the precaution of 
placing them on j'our mantel-piece for the night. 
Their bloom continues very long, and will fully 
recompense you for your trouble. Treat in the 
same way the Brunselsias, the torrenia Asiatica, 
the yxoras,* the oechmeas, and the small begoni- 
as, which, in company with each other, inside 
of your double window, will constitute there a 
charming little parterre taken from the tropical 

flora. 

Sparmannia. 

Do not forget to add to the above one or two 
plants of the Sparmannia, a native of the Cape 
of Good Hope. In thio pretty plant you may 
observe, while it is in oloom, the phenomenon of 
retractilitij, — with a contrary effect, however, — 
which renders the sensitive plant so ciirious. 
Touch delicately with the end of your finger the 
summit of the stamens of a flower of Sparman- 

* There is an interesting history of the yxora in Mrs. Loudon's 
book. 



THE PA B, LOR GARDENER. 149 

nia in full bloom : instead of modestly closing, in 
imitation of our gentle mimosa, they will forth- 
with scatter, spreading out in every direction 
with a brusque and instantaneous movement. 
Some time after they will return to their for- 
mer position. This property of the stamens of 
the Sparmannia, less generally known than that 
which manifests itself in the closing of the leaves 
of the sensitive plant, is not less curious or inter- 
esting to observe. 

Forced Strawberries. 
K you have two or three double windows 
instead of one, place pots of strawberries upon 
the glass stands of one of them ; they will bloom 
in January, and will give, each one, five or six 
strawberries in February, when out of doors the 
earth will perhaps yet be hard frozen, or covered 
with snoAV, and the river will be covered with 
skaters. At such a time a single strawberry, 
gathered from a plant forced by your care, in one 
of your double windows, will have the right to 
seem supremely delicious to you. 



150 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 



CONCLUSION. 

AND HERE, my dear ladies, ends the series of 
notions upon horticulture in the house that I 
proposed to give you. Can the Parlor Gardener 
flatter himself with having inspired you with a 
little interest for those plants that you already 
loved without knowing it, — for you were pre- 
disposed by your nature to do so, — and that 
you will love better and better in proportion as 
you know them more ? One thing above all 
ought to have struck you in the course of our 
discourse : it is, that in all that I have taken the 
liberty to recommend to you, there is not a single 
process that each of you cannot practise by your- 
self; not a single culture that you cannot suc- 
ceed in by conforming to my hints. Success in 
our undertakings, whatever the thing may be 
that we undertake to do, is always pleasure — 
often happiness. 

Let us understand each other, however. I do 



THE PARLOR GARDENER. 151 

not pretend that every thing you do will be 
always crowned with success ; you will often go 
wrong, and then your attempts will necessarily 
fall through ; this is inevitable. But this much I 
can promise, and answer for — that with a little 
reflection you will always be able to discern the 
cause of your failure ; and this being seen, you 
can then begin again, and obtain from a second 
attempt what you could not from the first. 

My dear ladies, I shall enjoy the pleasure — in 
imagination, at least — of seeing you engaged 
in adorning with these beautiful children of 
Flora, first your mantel-piece, next your itagtre, 
then your flower-stand, your balcony, and your 
terrace, all in due succession. I can picture to 
myself the liveliness of the satisfaction with 
■which you will watch the growth and the 
opening of the first bud of the first camellia, 
grafted with your own hand, and that also with 
which you will gather the first fruit of the first 
cherry tree that you will have forced under my 
directions. No doubt the ladies of your ac- 
quaintance will take pleasure in following your 
example — this inoff"ensive taste for gardening is 



152 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 

also a growing and spreading thing. Permit me, 
then, dear ladies, to indulge the hope that there 
will spring out from all this — amidst the violets 
and mignionettes — a little kind recollection of 
The Parlor Gardener. 



INEEX. 



A. 

Alaterne ^ 

Aquarium 

Aquarium, construction of «9 

Aquarium, parlor ^^ 



B. 

Balcony to the East ^^^ 

Balcony to the North ^^ 

Balcony to the South ^'^^ 

Balcony to the West ^^^ 

Beau, Spanish ^^^ 

Buddleya ^^'^ 

Bulbs, choice of them ^^ 



c. 

34 
Cactuses 

Camellias 

Christmas rose ^^^ 

Chrysanthemums ^"° 

Cleaning of plants ^^ 



(153) 



154 INDEX. 

Clematis 124 

Clianthus 112 

Cobea 100 

Crocus 25 

Currants 138 

D. 

Delphinium 125 

Di^talis 99 

Double window 143 



Echinocacti 35 

Epamprement 137 

Epiuoche 91 

Fruits grown on the terrace 129 

Fuchsias 116 

P^ruit trees, dwarf, forced 138 

Flower bulbs 21 

G. 

Galanthus 118 

Garden in the apartment 11 

Garden on the etagere 31 

Garden on the flower-stand 44 

Garden on the mantelpiece 20 

Garden on the terrace 120 

Garden on the window 96 

Gesneria 147 

Glass shelves 145 



INDEX, 155 

Gloxinia M7 

Glyciue of China 1'34 

Grafts a la pontoise BO 

Grafts of Camellia 84 

Grafts of Oranye 80 

Grafts, what practicable 78 

Greenhouse, cold 56 

Greenhouse, warm 73 

Grevillea 146 



H. 

Hepatica 99 

Hibiscus -. 125 

Hollyhock 124 

Holly, variegated 122 

Honeysuckle 124 

Hyacinth, flowering' iu Avater 21 

Hydrocharis 92 

Hypericum 99 

I. 
Ivy, Irish 98 

J. 

Japan quince 119 

Jonquil 24 

K. 

Kenuedia 146 

L. 

Larkspur 125 



156 INDEX. 

Ligatui'es for grafts 8l 

Lobelia 146 

M. 

Mandevillea suaveolens 48 

Melocacti 35 

Mesembryanlhemums ^ 

Miguiouette 1*^2 

Mimosa pudica 92 

Mimulus 9^ 

N. 

Nemophiles ^ 

Nipping off buds . . . . « ^'^^ 

P. 
Pansies 105 

Passion flower 4G 

Pelargoniums 71 

Periwinkle 122 

Plants boug-ht in floAver 45 

Plants for the double window 130 

Plants for the flower-stand 45 

Plums 137 

Pruning- grapes 134 

Q. 

Quince, Japan 119 

R. 

Ranunculus 62 

Ranunculus, aquatic 94 



INDEX. 157 

Raspberry bush 137 

Khocliola 5 

Kice, grafted d-2 

Kose, Bourgaiiiville 124 

liose, Boursault 124 



s. 

Sedum (stono-crop) 38 

Seed-bed 58 

Sempervivum (house-leek) 5 

Shrubs, branching .124 

Shi-ubs, climbing 124 

Slips in the cold portable greenhouse 60 

Slips in the warm portable greenhouse 73 

Slips of begonia C9 

Slips of camellia 7 1 

Slips of chrysanthemums 71 

Slips of dwai'f succulent plants 68 

Slips of leaves 68 

Slips of pelargoniums 71 

Slips, rose 71 

Snow-drop 118 

Spanish beans 100 

SparmamTia M8 

Stapelia 3o 

Stock gillyflower 102 

StraAvberry, Aljiine 132 

Strawberry, Chili 132 

Strawberry, (xoliah 132 

Strawberry, Queen of Great Britain 132 

Strawberry, Virginia scarlet 132 

Strawberry, Wilmot superb 132 



158 INDEX. 



T. 

Terrace, balcony 110 

Terrace, garden 120 

Thinning grapes 134 

Thunbergia alata 4H 

Tomatoes grafted on potatoes 78 

V. 

Yases, hanging 101-104 

Vine cultivated in flower pot 133 

Violet, double climbing 47 

Virginia creeper 124 

w. 

Watering 13 

Warmth 16 

Winter rose 119 

Wood pink . 46 

Y. 
Yxora • *^^ 









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